Ancient Medicine

This is the first large-scale history of medicine in Antiquity to appear in a single volume for almost one hundred years. It combines archaeological evidence with written texts, and introduces many new medical texts that have survived only in medieval translations into Arabic.

As well as telling the story of the development of medical ideas, from the early Greeks to the massive handbooks of Late Antiquity, it looks at the place of medicine in ancient society. Vivian Nutton explores the life and work of doctors, looking at the diseases they faced, the ways in which they obtained their knowledge, and whether they were respected by the community. He also investigates the relationship between medicine and the various religious beliefs of antiquity, asking if there were fixed boundaries between medicine and magic; finally he examines the differences in approaches to medicine between a great city such as Rome to territories such as Egypt or Roman Britain.

By refusing to take Hippocratic medicine as the universal standard of ancient medical practice, the book allows a greater space to the alternatives, and sets Galen of Pergamum, the great Hippocratic physician, in a new historical context.