Latin medical texts transmit medical theories and practices that originated mainly in Greece. This interaction took place through juxtaposition, assimilation and transformation of ideas. 'Greek' and 'Roman' in Latin Medical Texts studies the ways in which this cultural interaction influenced the development of the medical profession and the growth of knowledge of human and animal bodies, and especially how it provided the foundations for innovations in the areas of anatomy, pathology and pharmacology, from the earliest Latin medical texts until well into the medieval world.

With The Tools of Asclepius Lawrence Bliquez offers the first comprehensive treatment in English of the instruments and paraphernalia employed by Greco-Roman surgeons since John St. Milne's Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times (1907). Introductory sections cover topics ranging from literary and archaeological sources to the design, materials and production of instruments and the training and practice of the doctors-surgeons who used them. Summaries of Hippocratic and Hellenistic surgery lead to the meat of the book: tools used during the Roman Empire. These are...

This book offers the first extended study published in English on the Hippocratic treatise On Regimen, one of the most important pre-Platonic documents of the discussion of human nature and other topics at the intersection of ancient medicine and philosophy. It is not only a unique example of classical Greek dietetic literature, including the most elaborated account of the micro-macrocosm and phusis-technē analogies, but it also provides the most explicit discussion of the soul-body opposition preceding Plato. Moreover, Bartos argues, it is a rare example of an...

Robert Leigh offers a critical edition with translation into English, commentary and introduction of the pharmacological treatise On Theriac to Piso traditionally attributed to Galen. The focus of the work is on the question of authorship and Leigh seeks to show on textual, pharmacological, doctrinal and historical grounds that the attribution to Galen is at least highly problematic and probably mistaken. As well as marshalling the arguments in the introduction, Leigh seeks in the commentary not only to give a general exegesis of the text but also to identify points of agreement and...

The distinction that Praxagoras of Cos (4th-3rd c. BC) made between arteries and veins and his views on pulsation and pneuma are two significant turning points in the history of ideas and medicine. In this book Orly Lewis presents the fragmentary evidence for this topic and offers a fresh analysis of Praxagoras views on the soul and the functions of the heart and pneuma. In so doing, she highlights the empirical basis of Praxagoras views and his engagement with earlier medical debates and with Aristotle s physiology. The study consists of an edition and translation of the relevant fragments...