[Medicine and scientific method in the Roman world. Introduction].
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History, Ancient↗
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[Obesity and its treatment in the Roman world].
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Female↗
[Speech and inspiration: the role of the voice in the Roman world].
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History, Ancient↗
Work-time profile, blood lactate concentration and rating of perceived exertion in the 1998 Greco-Roman Wrestling World Championship.
The aim of this study was to examine work-time profiles, blood lactate concentrations and perceived exertion among Greco-Roman wrestlers in the 1998 World Championship. Forty-two senior wrestlers from nine nations were studied in 94 matches. Each match was recorded with a video camera (Panasonic AG 455, film rate: 25 Hz) and analysed for duration of work (wrestling) and rest (interrupt) periods. Blood lactate concentration was determined with an electrochemical device (Analox P-LM5) and a rating of perceived exertion scale (Borg) was used to estimate general exertion and exertion in the extremity and trunk muscles. The mean duration of the matches was 427 s (range 324-535 s), with mean durations of work and rest of 317 and 110 s, respectively. The mean periods of work and rest were 37.2 and 13.8 s, respectively. Mean blood lactate concentration was 14.8 mmol x 1(-1) (range 6.9-20.6). The difference in mean blood lactate concentration between the first- and final-round matches was not significant (P > 0.05). Blood lactate concentration was significantly higher (P < 0.04) in matches of long duration than in those of short duration. The mean general rating of perceived exertion for all matches was 13.8 according to the scale used. Most of the wrestlers (53.3%) perceived exertion to be highest in the flexors of the forearm, followed by the deltoids (17.4%) and the biceps brachii muscles (12.0%). In addition to a relatively high rating of perceived exertion in the arm muscles, this indicates a high specific load on the flexor muscles of the forearm.
Adult↗
Medical ethics in ancient times.
Moral self-regulation is all the more important in ancient medicine since medical training and practice in the Greek-Roman world were not subjected to any legal or state regulations. Physicians on the one hand had to acquire scientific skills, through voluntary efforts, and on the other hand had to offer the image of a "friend-physician" with respect for the personality of the patient. This code of conduct would distinguish the professionally serious physician from the many quack-doctors who claimed to be healers. Conversely, the famous text of the so called "Hippocratic Oath" cannot be considered as a significant example of the prevailing positions in ancient medicine, because it draws inspiration from philosophical-religious concerns typical of the Pythagoric sect.
Ethics, Medical↗
[A. C. Celsus as seen by Caius Plinius Secundus and the Roman cultural world].
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Famous Persons↗
Phanostrate, Metrodora, Lais and the others. Women in the medical profession.
This article offers a historical view of the women in the medical profession from the Homeric epics to Soranus and Galen until the early Middle Ages, in both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean areas. Recent important medical-historical papers well claify the contribution of women in health care in both the Greek and the Roman world.
Greek World↗
[The "medical school" of Alexandria and its influence upon medicine in Graeco-Roman Egypt].
The paper provides new information on the most famous centre of rational medicine in the Graeco-Roman world and its influence in Egypt. It uses at its point of departure a remarkable but insufficiently known documentation: Greek literary papyri (from IV/III B.C. to A.D. VI/VII), which often are unique witnesses to lost medical works, bearing testimony to original theories, practices and vocabulary.
Egypt↗
[Use of Ancient texts in modern therapeutic research].
Two main purposes were assigned to this study of medicinal prescription of spices at the time of the Roman Empire: analyze Roman pharmacopoeia of spices in reference to modern criteria and assess a new discipline, close to "ethno-botany" and "ethno-pharmacology", aiming to a new approach of drug research: "archeopharmacology". A brief overview is given of the Roman world of spices : all aromatic substances from Orient, India and Far-East held a major place which can only be compared to the role of petroleum in our modern times. The study is conducted on a thesaurus of 2600 quotations from twelve authors: Apicius, Caelius Aurelianus, Cassius Felix, Celsus, Dioscorides, Galen, Marcellus,(Anonymous) Mulonmedicina, Pelagorius, Pliny the Elder, Serenus Sammonicus and Scribonius Largus and a set of 33 medicinal spices among which: cyperus, ferulas (Asa foetida), frankincense, pepper, myrrh and saffron. Medicinal use of spices (mainly for pneumology, dermatology and gastroenterology) do not differ notably from the rest of Roman pharmacopoeia: the main criteria for prescription of spices is not their place of origin but a "therapeutic profile" which is clearly assigned to each substance by tradition. During the last decades, new methods of therapeutic research: ethno-botany and ethno-pharmacology have been used extensively to explore traditional medicines. A new discipline is ready to emerge: "archeo-pharmacology", aiming towards a drug research based on Ancient texts.
Archaeology↗
Archaeology: formulation of a Roman cosmetic.
The discovery of a small tin canister in London during archaeological excavations of a Roman temple precinct, dated to the middle of the second century AD, is a landmark in the study of this class of artefact. Such discoveries from the Roman world are rare and this is the only one to be found so far with its lid and contents--a whitish medicinal or cosmetic cream--providing a unique opportunity for us to study the ancient formulation.
Animals↗
The originality of Tibullus' Marathus elegies.
As far we can judge from the extant literature, Tibullus' three Marathus elegies are among the most sophisticated poetry of male same-sex desire and love composed in the ancient Greco-Roman world. These poems belong to a long and well-established tradition of male homoerotic poetry that goes back to the Greeks of the Archaic Age and was given new impetus centuries later in Roman literature. In this tradition, Tibullus' Marathus elegies stand out for their qualities of irony, dramatic engagement, and psychological finesse.
Female↗
[Farmaka in antiquity: from Hippocrates to Dioscorides].
Informations and suggests for use of pharmaka and drugs from animal, vegetable and mineral kingdom already appear in Corpus Hippocraticum writers; they helped the Hippocratic physician in curing Humors' krasis and in re-establishing their right relation. From Aristotelian Gymnasium to Teophrastus' Historia Plantarum, to Nicander, Praxagoras, Apollophanes and others Hellenistic pharmacologists, the drugs' application finally came to Roman world, where it clashed with the strong opposition of autochthonous traditions. A very active trade with Near and Middle East, but also with the provinces of Africa and Spain developed in Rome; the Roman public, then, began to elaborate again the Greek experience, and found an agreement with his own science. Celsus', Dioscorides', Scribonius', and Plinius' works - they were not always technical writers - well testify Roman pharmacologic science from the first century A.D.
Greece, Ancient↗
A subject with abnormally short stature from Imperial Rome.
In spite of the rich iconographic and literary documentation from ancient sources, the skeletal evidence concerning individuals of abnormally short stature in the Greco-Roman world is scarce. The necropolis of Viale della Serenissima/Via Basiliano in Rome, mostly referable to the II century AD, recently yielded the skeleton of an individual characterized by proportionate short stature, gracile features suggesting female gender, and delayed epiphysial closure, associated with full maturation of the permanent dentition. These characteristics could be compatible with the phenotype associated with female gonadal dysgenesis. The skeletal individual described here, although poorly preserved, represents the first evidence of a paleopathologic condition affecting skeletal growth documented for the population of ancient Rome.
Adult↗
[Twins in myth (author's transl)].
Twins have an important place in mythology and a sacred character appears to be attached to them since the most ancient times. In ancient Egypt, the royal placenta was worshipped, being considered as the Pharao's twin (a conception that is still alive among certain African populations), and actually everyone was considered to possess a spiritual twin, the Ka or astral body, through whom it was supposed to be possible to operate with magic rituals and hit enemies. Twin gods were worshipped by Babylonians and Assyrians (who even introduced them among astronomic constellations), and may be also found in the Persian and Veda religions. In the classic, Greco-Roman world, the examples of twin gods and heroes are innumerable: from the twin sons of Zeus, the Dioscuri, to the opposite-sexed twin gods Apollo and Diana, to Rome's founders, Romulus and Remus, etc. Since the most ancient times, a magic conception is connected to the twins, either in a positive or a negative sense, but often with some kind of a "fatidic" aspect. Such a two-faced approach to the phenomenon of twinning, that variously characterizes near-east, protomediterranean, classic, and other ancient civilizations, may still be found in contemporary primitive societies.
Female↗
[Sacer ignis, quam pustulam vocant pastores: anthrax--cultural historical traces of a zoonosis].
The knowledge of anthrax as a disease and its importance as a zoonosis in the Greco-Roman world is revealed through a selection of classical texts and mythological sources, taking into account evidence of reworking and reuse of these texts up until the nineteenth century. The numerous names given to the disease throughout history and their linguistic origins will also be examined in this paper. The narrative of the epizoonoses in Noricum in Virgil's Georgics; taken by several to represent a description of an anthrax epidemic, and which had a great influence in written works on veterinary medicine up until the discovery of bacteria, will be given particular attention. The crucial term is "Sacer Ignis", synonymous for several different human and animal diseases through time. This term will be analysed in terms of linguistic origin and the changes in meaning it acquired throughout the centuries.
Animals↗
Kidney disease in Byzantine medical texts.
The most significant contribution of the great Byzantine physicians to the evolution of medicine is their effort to summarize all the medical knowledge of the Greco-Roman world, which included earlier sources in antiquity, lost forever in our days. The transition from ancient to medieval medicine included the adoption of Christian spiritual values, which took place in the early Byzantine period (4th to 7th century). In the field of nephrology, under the influence of Hippocratic and Galenic doctrines, the most prominent medical personalities, Oribasius of Pergamum, Aetius of Amida, Alexander of Tralles and Paul of Aegina, performed the role of the researcher and healer, as well as that of the encyclopedist. Their works on kidney disease are presented in this paper.
Byzantium↗
Traces of medical activity in Ephesus.
Ephesus was an important city of Asia Minor, existing as an exchange point between Egypt and the Greek-Roman world. As it was the birthplace of famous physicians and situated between Kos-Knidos and Pergamon, it is surprising that no medical buildings have been clearly identified in this area. In the upper old Hellenistic city, two pillars include, on the southern face, a youth with a goat and Hermes, respectively. On the internal faces, reliefs of tripods, an omphalos, a mortar and a twined snake may refer to mantic and/or pharmacy and medicine. Near the pillars, a temple for sacrifices dedicated to Hera and a statue of Apollo manteion in the Prytaneoion have been found. Because both the Apollo and Hermes myths are closely related to medicine, the pillars may be a sign of medical activity in that part of the city. This activity may be related to both mantic in the direction of the temple and practice in the direction of a building which has not yet been identified. This interpretation is confirmed by an inscription on the Museion-Church of Virgin Mary: a physician from the Mouseion is referred to as a practitioner near the supreme priest (hieros): thus, the pillars may be an indication of both sacred and medical activities in that part of the city.
Archaeology↗
[Evolution of pharmaceutical regulations from the origins to Germinal law].
The rising of pharmaceutical regulations took place in the civilisations located around the Mediterranean Sea. Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greco-Roman world, Byzantine Empire, were followed by Bagdad, where sayadila, inspections and grabadins appeared. The creation of Universities, during the XIIth and XIIIth centuries, plaid a role in the rising of apothecaries communities in Occident. Melfi Constitutions (Constititiones Melfiae, 1231) and new constitutions (1241) inspired most of the regulations of apothecaries communities in Europe. Declaration of the King of France in April 1777 announced the famous "Loi de Germinal", Germinal law, which organized the modern Pharmacy, in 1803.
France↗