Calloway Scott // Among the civilizations which ringed the shores of the antique Mediterranean (and beyond), it was quite well known that dreams carried with them portents of the future events. The cuneiform tablets of ancient Sumer and Assyria speak of the nocturnal intercourse of royals and gods, promising success in war. The epics of…
Tag: ancient medicine
Bodies in Stone II
Calloway Scott // In Part I, I made a case for the way ancient Graeco-Roman healing temples created a sense of community for sick suppliants through the careful collection and display of “patient narratives” within sanctuary space. Here I want to take a look at another facet of this community building, the dedication of anatomical…
Bodies in Stone I
Calloway Scott // In an earlier post, I sketched the rise and characteristic features of Hippocratic medicine in the 5th century BCE. There I was interested in the peculiar forms of technical authority the Hippocratic practitioner developed over the bodies of his patients. I noted that the creation of such technical authority created a specific set…
De atra bile: An (auto)biography of cancer
Calloway Scott // Look at a recent history of cancer and you might learn something like the following: in the ancient world, cancers were rare. This is owing to shorter lifespans of the population and more limited environmental, occupational, and habitual exposure to carcinogens. It is also very probable that you will learn that the…
The Invention of “Greek” Medicine
Calloway Scott // Early histories of medicine in the west typically traced the “invention” of scientific medicine to the “Greek miracle” of the Classical era (500-323 BCE). That this historiographic narrative—offering contemporary medical method and thought a compelling and authoritative origin—suited a wide variety of 19th and early 20th century interests is hardly surprising. Positivist histories of…