Health in Antiquity

ISBN-13: 9780415220651 / Angielski / Twarda / 2005 / 314 str.

Helen King; Helen King

Opis

Is health the absence of disease, or a more positive state of happiness and well-being? How healthy were people in ancient Greece and Rome, and how did they think about maintaining and restoring their health? Answers to these and many previously untouched questions are dealt with by renowned ancient historians, classical scholars and archaeologists. Using a multi-disciplined approach, the contributors assess the issues surrounding health in the Greco-Roman world from prehistory to Christian late antiquity . Sources range from palaeodemography to patristics and from archaeology to architecture and using these, this book considers what health meant, how it was thought to be achieved, and addresses how the ancient world can be perceived as an ideal in subsequent periods of history. For anyone studying Classics, The History of Medicine this book provides a fascinating insight into the health and perceptions of health in antiquity. A study aid must.

Spis treści

1. Disease and the Prehistory of the Aegean  2. Health and Disease in Greece: Past, present and future  3. Health in Hellenistic and Roman Times: The case studies of Paphos, Cyprus and Corinth, Greece  4. Health and the Life Course at Herculaneum and Pompeii  5. Holding on to Health? Bone surgery and instrumentation in the Roman empire  6. 'Without You No One is Happy': The cult of health in ancient Greece  7. Hygieia at Dinner and at the Simposium  8. Women's Health and Recovery in the Hippocratic Corpus  9. Drama and Healing: Ancient and modern  10. 'Curing' Disability  11. The Salubriousness of the Roman City  12. Buildings for Health: Then and now 13. The Health of the Spiritual Athlete  14. 'Carrying on the Work of the Earlier Firm': Doctors, medicine and Christianity in the Thaumata of Sophronius of Jerusalem

O autorze

Helen King is Professor of History of Classical Medicine at the University of Reading. She is the author of Hippocrates' Women (1998) and The Disease of Virgins (2003).