Band 17, Heft 1 - Special Issue: Diagnosis: Late Antique Taxonomies in Medicine and Healing Issue Editor: Nils H. Korsvoll/Ágnes T. Mihálykó

This introduction sets out the basic premises for the special issue on diagnosis and taxonomy in late antique healing. Drawing on recent insights from history of medicine, we consider health and healing as broader, sociocultural phenomena and argue that to understand late antique healing practices we must understand late antiquity. Throughout the issue we see that medical taxonomies and diagnostics rely not only on (ancient) biology, but also include cosmology, mythology and sociocultural traditions. These come together in three overarching principles: causality, categorisation, and discourse, which run through the different articles and the different material they present. We offer some preliminary observations here to the seven articles that follow.

Many ancient healing and medical techniques involved ritual interactions with divinities, such as the creation and use of amulets, the use of natural (often bodily) substances and other drugs associated with specific humours and elements, visits to temples and shrines, incubation practices, and engaging with flora and fauna associated with divine figures. How can we understand these kinds of ancient healing practices and medical treatments that relied upon and engaged with entities which, according to the dominant epistemological frameworks of modernity, do not exist? And how can we do so without too hastily resorting to etic explanations that would categorize all such beliefs and practices as irrational? In response to these questions, this paper offers a thought experiment designed to demonstrate the rationality of ancient beliefs in divine healing. I situate such beliefs in the ancient classificatory system of elemental theory, a kind of totalizing system that explained natural processes and phenomena in terms of their correspondence to the four fundamental elements (earth, water, air, and fire). Focusing specifically on the healing properties associated with water, I show how certain waters and the mixtures of elements they contained would have been understood by ancient medical practitioners, philosophers, and natural scientists as especially salubrious because of their sympathetic connections to certain deities. In doing so, I provide a scientific, rather than purely theological, explanation for divine healing and argue that the apparent ‘irrationality’ of ancient epistemology – and specifically the ways in which it seems to violate the boundaries between science and religion – is a result of our (modern historians and academics) classificatory systems, and not a reflection of their (ancient intellectuals) category errors. This paper thus contributes to efforts by scholars such as Darren Lehoux, Thomas Kuhn, and Anthnoy Grafton to consider the kinds of work that systems of classification perform in any historical time period, including our own.

Illness diagnosed as punishment, as the consequence of wrongdoing (often involving ritual transgression), was a prominent aspect of Greek religious and therapeutic practices. The concept is a recurring motif in literary works. The aim of this short study is to examine briefly the emergence and development of this conceptualization from Homer to the rise of Christianity. The association between illness or suffering and wrongdoing, viewed in the context of individual or collective misdeeds, shaped the development of disease aetiology and the selection of treatments. Furthermore, it influenced the taxonomy of symptoms and the evaluation of the efficacy of specific healers and treatments in different cases. Though it often remained in the background, it is not impossible to identify some religious, literary, philosophical, social and medical aspects of this concept.

This paper explores the historical use of gagates (jet stone) as a diagnostic and therapeutic tool in ancient medicine, particularly in relation to epilepsy, through a taxonomic framework that classifies its functions, applications, and symbolic meanings. Gagates , a black fossilized material, was primarily used in fumigation rituals to diagnose the “sacred disease” by triggering seizures when its smoke was inhaled by epileptic patients. In the therapeutic taxonomy, gagates addressed diverse conditions: it was used to repel snakes, treat so-called female ailments, and alleviate various issues such as heart problems and intestinal worms. The paper delves into the physiological and astrological theories underlying this practice, emphasizing the direct connection between respiration and the brain, which was believed to be the seat of cognitive function. It examines the cosmological associations of gagates , particularly its link to the planet Saturn, which governed the nervous system and black bile in ancient medical and astrological thought. By synthesizing ancient texts and archaeological findings, this paper demonstrates how gagates exemplifies a broader taxonomic structure in ancient healing practices, reflecting the integration of natural materials, physiological knowledge, and cosmic forces. These taxonomies underscore the systematic organization of ancient medicine, where lithic materials like gagates embodies interconnected natural, medical, and astrological beliefs.

The bewildering mixture of various types of knowledge (e.g. astrology/astronomy, divination, magic, physiognomy, biology, geography etc.) and religious or legal discussion in Jewish late antique literature (Talmudic tradition) has triggered in earlier scholarship maximalist and minimalist positions. While some saw scientific ideas as always subdued to theology or rabbinic legal thought (Halakhah), others were very eager to interpret these passages as proof for the true scientific nature of Talmudic texts and held that some rabbis were, in fact, expert physicians, astronomers or diviners. In my article I parse the discursive strategies of the Talmudic authors and seek to shed some light on the integration of medicine and other sciences into a rabbinic corpus commonly understood as religious and normative. Specifically, my inquiry aims at the juxtaposition of religious or moral diagnosis and disease etiologies that neatly intersect (or contradict) medical or physiological explanations of illnesses. Moreover, I study the role of rabbis who are portrayed both as medical experts and patients or practitioners who apply and discuss illness, health or therapies but also receive medical advice and experiment with various cures. Attention is paid to the discursive portrayal, the literary framing and the cultural strategies implied.

Headaches, including those that conform to disorders identified today as migraines, have been attested in magical texts as early as three millennia ago. Ritual practitioners from different traditions and periods have attempted to treat them by using spells, magical materials, and appeals to supernatural entities. This article explores the attestations of migraines in the corpus of late antique Mesopotamian incantation bowls. It begins with the modern medical classifications of migraines and their symptoms. It then outlines some of the terminology, symptoms and treatments for migraines in antiquity, followed by a description of migraine attestations in the rabbinic corpus and in the Jewish ritual/ magical traditions. The article then surveys and analyzes the attestations of migraines in the Mesopotamian magic bowls, placing them in a historical medico-ritual context. Lastly, the article puts forward a new interpretation of the Aramaic term baruqta , which is frequently found in association with migraine terminology.

Being mostly apotropaic, Aramaic magic bowls emphasise the ills or troubles they are to protect against. Among these are lists of threats identified by making a collective noun from a verb, for instance ‘the slayers’ or ‘the destroyers’. In this they follow other ancient sources that identify disease as an external entity that had somehow invaded the patient, and health would be restored when the unwelcome visitor departed. In cognitive studies, this is considered an evolutionary tendency to conceive of the unknown as bounded, often anthropomorphic, agents, whereas psychology explores this as a defence mechanism that maintains the integrity of the self and reduces stress and anxiety. Here, I examine some examples from magic bowls, to better understand how threats and illnesses were conceived of and described in Antiquity, as well as what realm(s) or taxonomies these illnesses were considered a part of.

The Coptic magical corpus, a collection of manuscripts produced in Egypt between the fourth and twelfth centuries CE for private ritual purposes, provides a rich source concerning non-institutional and private healing practices. Because the magical healing manuscripts from the corpus are not self-reflexive, unlike Hippocratic writings, the work of interpretation and reconstruction of the taxonomies of the healing practices is left to modern researchers. The researcher has several etic interrelated categories to understand and interpret: symptoms (i.e., tooth pain), causes (i.e., evil spirits), and treatments (i.e., binding of an amulet to the forearm). In understanding the relationships between these three categories, the modern reader might more easily comprehend the logic of healing practices witnessed by the corpus. However, not only healing texts provide an insight into the causes of diseases, but also curses causing them (called here health curses). In this article, I discuss and compare both of these corpora and focus especially on lists of illnesses and agents causing them, as they appear in both healing texts and health curses.