Ancient Medicine in Its Socio-Cultural Context, Volume 1

This collection of papers – some of which written by the world’s leading specialists in the area of ancient medicine – aims at promoting an integrated approach to medical theory and practice in classical antiquity. Questions of health and disease are considered in their relation to the social, intellectual, moral and religious dimensions of the ancient world. The papers focus on the socio-cultural setting of the experience of pain and illness, the different reactions they provoked and the importance that was attached to this experience in literature, religion and philosophy.
The first volume offers articles (from an archaeological, historical and philological point of view) dealing with social, institutional and geographical aspects of medical practice. It also has a special section on medical views on women, children and sexuality, and on female medical activity.
The second volume focuses on the ways in which religious and magical beliefs influenced the experience of, and the attitude towards, illness and medical practice. It also deals with the relations of medicine with philosophy, and the other sciences and with the variety of linguistic and textual forms in which medical knowledge was expressed and communicated.

Contributors to the first volume are Lawrence J. Bliquez, Simon Byl, Armelle Debru, Nancy Demand, Danielle Gourevitch, Ann Ellis Hanson, H.F.J. Horstmanshoff, Ralph Jackson, Eva C. Keuls, Jukka Korpela, Ernst Künzl, Gabriele Marasco, Attilio Mastrocinque, Karin Nijhuis, Vivian Nutton, H.W. Pleket, Heikki Solin, Peter Van Minnen, and Juliane C. Wilmanns.

”The skill and high standards of the editors have transformed what could have been merely another dreary volume of congress proceedings into a very useful work. The volumes have been handsomely produced, and their contents are made more accessible by the addition of a comprehensive general index as well as indices of both literary sources and inscriptions and papyri. … a valuable collection of essays that constitutes a significant contribution to the study of Greco-Roman medicine.” in: Bulletin of the History of Medicine, Vol. 72, Issue 2 (1998)