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At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1997

Medical instruments in the Roman world.

By the beginning of the 1st century AD Roman medical instruments had begun to acquire the distinctive forms which they were to retain, more or less unchanged, for the next half millennium. They were carefully-designed, highly-crafted precision tools well-adapted to the range of surgical interventions and operations described in the contemporary medical texts. Their versatility and multiplicity of function is discussed, as also is the evidence derived from apparently complete instrumentaria, which sheds light on the form of medical practise undertaken by the people who used them.

Equipment and Supplies↗
PubMed1996

[Therapeutic uses of natron in Ancient Egypt and the Greco-Roman world].

Natron or native soda, a natural compound of sodium salts, was a very important product in ancient history. It was produced in Egypt, Middle East and Greece. Natron was used for medicine, cookery, agriculture, in glass-making and to dehydrate egyptian mummies. The medicinal uses are known thanks to egyptian pharaonic, greek and latin texts, which are rich of hundreds of recipes. Those treatments concerning almost every part of the body were essentially applied externally. They are often intended to treat dermatological pathology and hydro-electrolytic disorders as well as lesions caused by fungi and parasites. The present knowledge of the pharmacological properties of the components of natron does not explain fully its place in ancient medicine.

Egypt, Ancient↗
PubMed1995

[Twins in the Greco-Roman world: medical theories and iconographpy].

The phenomenon of multiple births aroused very ambivalent feelings in the ancient classical world. This article endeavours to define how this ambivalence was expressed, on the one hand in ancient medical theories, through associations with concepts of monstrosity and excess, on the other hand in art, through a selection of mythological themes and iconographic conventions.

Art↗
PubMed1995

Contraception and abortion in the Greco-Roman world.

The author discusses the validity of the claim that, in Antiquity, effective contraceptives and abortifacients were available, were widely used, and their use was responsible for the decline of population in certain periods. After reviewing the maneuvers and drugs used for those purposes, the author concludes that ancient physicians did not have at their disposal effective contraceptives and abortifacients other than those that acted mechanically. In view of the danger associated with the mechanical induction of abortion, the ineffectiveness of pharmacological agents, and the limitations of mechanical contraceptives, it is concluded that drugs and other means of inducing abortion and contraception had a very limited impact on population in Antiquity.

Abortion, Spontaneous↗
PubMed1995

[Tooth pastes and oral hygiene in the Roman world].

The trial against Apuleius frames historically and socially the subject of oral hygiene, which hides behind the semiotic paradigm full of magic, superstition, and all of the roman cultural background which stems from the ancient greek tradition. After reading carefull the latin odontic prescription written by Scribonius Largus, Celsus, Plinius, Marcellus etc., we don't want to stop at a precise list of tooth paste ingredients but we have tried to interpret the ideological procedures and practices which guided the greek and latin therapeutic practices and daily hygiene.

History, Ancient↗
PubMed1999

[The classical healer as a castrator. The involvement of doctors in castration practices of the Graeco-Roman world].

The elimination of the testicles of boys and men, what we call castration, was frequently practised in Graeco-Roman antiquity. Probably it was sometimes done by laymen, but certainly also sometimes carried out by doctors. This article provides an overview of classical texts concerning castration practices in which doctors were involved, and explores the background of these specific castration practices. It appears that doctors not only cooperated in several practices that were (thought to be) beneficial for their patients, but also in the involuntary castration of healthly slave boys, mostly for the benefit of slave-owners, and hardly to the advantage of their patients.

Castration↗
PubMed1995

[Medicine as ars in the Roman world. Its advance from sacral to secular approach, its trading and public diffusion: socio-political considerations and their legal consequences].

The close linkage between empiric knowledge and its magic religious background in the archaic period appears clearly as a main feature characterizing the medical ars at its beginning, at least till it advances to a full secular approach during the fifth and fourth century B.C. The medical knowledge, which had been a privileged inheritance of the ruling class underwent a rapid transformation with the rise of the Roman Empire and its hegemonic politics that reached its climax during the Punic wars. As it was spread to all social classes it achieved an ever increasing importance leading to its specialisation and trading. This socio-political change had repercussions on the legal field: indeed conventiones concerning medical service came into effect. As far as action was concerned, doctors were permitted to avail themselves of the cognitio extra ordinem in order to get the rewards they were entitled to. The application of the legal tool cognition was however a device embedded in a set of other remedies aiming at granting rewards and incentives i.e. privilegia and salarium. Their development over the period of the Roman Empire was linked with a growing monopoly run by the supreme authority.

Commerce↗
PubMed1995

The social status of physicians in the Graeco-Roman world.

After some introductory remarks about village-doctors--probably respectable in their villages but far removed from the elite of urban councillors--this contribution focuses on the position of the iatros dêmosios (public physician) in cities. It argues that throughout antiquity Greek public doctors in majority did not belong to the elite and that in the Greek cities of the Roman empire the number of elite physicians may have risen somewhat. Other, i.e. non-public physicians were basically craftsmen, probably enjoying some esteem among their customers but not being part of the socio-political elite.

Greece, Ancient↗