Abstract
This special issue explores belief and healing in Late Antiquity, through insight and terminology developed in modern placebo research. My introduction outlines the history of placebo research and its use in historical studies of medicine and healing. It has helped historians pose new questions to their sources and discuss them in light of modern medical research. Most studies analyse various descriptions or records of symptoms or diagnoses, but some researchers also extend their work to include social or anthropological studies of healing. Summarizing insights from such efforts in medical research and the history of medicine, I propose a selection of questions and perspectives from research on the placebo effect to aid and guide the subsequent articles in their examination of their respective sets of sources, as well as facilitate discussion and comparison across our different materials, and often also differing disciplines.
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© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Introduction: Using Placebo Research to Explore Belief and Healing in Late Antiquity
- Placebo is Magic or Magic is Placebo? The Greco-Roman Iatromagical Texts
- Healing Traditions in Coptic Magical Texts
- Placebo factors at healing sanctuaries in pagan and early Christian times
- The Question of the Effectiveness of Coptic Pharmacological Prescriptions
- Healing in Christian Liturgy in Late Antique Egypt: Sources and Perspectives
- The Placebo Drama of the Asclepius Cult
- The vocabulary of care and healing in the Greek private letters of Byzantine Egypt
- Hope for Cure and the Placebo Effect: The Case of the Greco-Egyptian Iatromagical Formularies
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Introduction: Using Placebo Research to Explore Belief and Healing in Late Antiquity
- Placebo is Magic or Magic is Placebo? The Greco-Roman Iatromagical Texts
- Healing Traditions in Coptic Magical Texts
- Placebo factors at healing sanctuaries in pagan and early Christian times
- The Question of the Effectiveness of Coptic Pharmacological Prescriptions
- Healing in Christian Liturgy in Late Antique Egypt: Sources and Perspectives
- The Placebo Drama of the Asclepius Cult
- The vocabulary of care and healing in the Greek private letters of Byzantine Egypt
- Hope for Cure and the Placebo Effect: The Case of the Greco-Egyptian Iatromagical Formularies
- List of Contributors