rome and Disease

Topics: Attitude to Health; Disease; Greek World; History, Ancient; Humans; Philosophy, Medical; Rome

Galen was, with no doubt, a great authority in ancient medicine rivalled only with "the father of medicine" Hippocrates. His medicine inherited not only Hippocratic tradition, which is characterized by dynamic pathology, but also Alexandrian medicine, which made a great contribution to anatomy. He did not generalize all the pathological phenomena according to one dogmatic theory. His medicine was open to all kinds of medicine, but he was quite selective in receiving different medical traditions.Galen defined disease as impairment of bodily activities. Whatever that impairs the bodily activities is the cause of disease. Galen' s pathology is built upon two heterogeneous medical traditions: 1) Dynamic pathology of the Hippocratic medicine, but which ignored anatomy 2) Anatomical pathology of Alexandrian medicine. Galen integrated these two different traditions by his concept of disease. His definition of disease, impairment of bodily activities, made it possible to harmorize these two different traditions otherwise which would have been conflictual. It is Galen' s great contribution to Western medicine to have laid a foundation of pathology by combining physiological and anatomical point of view .

Topics: Disease; Greek World; History, Ancient; Philosophy, Medical; Rome

Topics: Disease; History, Ancient; Philosophy; Rome

Medical metaphora is quite widespread in ancient literature; the description of a sick body is often used by Greek and Roman philosophers and writers to define a critical condition of the State, in which just one corrupt part can ruin the entire system. Especially Persius, in his Satire, uses this way of expression to flog Roman people's corrupt habits. Reading Persius' poems and studying his satiric metaphora, in comparing it to Ippocrates' description of a considerabe number of diseases, we can reconstruct the degree of diffusion of the Greek ancient medicine in Rome in the I century A.D., before Galen's arrival.

Topics: Disease; Government; Greece, Ancient; History, Ancient; Humans; Medicine in Literature; Poetry as Topic; Politics; Rome; Social Problems; Wit and Humor as Topic

Topics: Civilization; Disease; Disease Outbreaks; England; Europe; History, Ancient; History, Medieval; History, Modern 1601-; Rome

Topics: Disease; History, Ancient; Humans; Literature; Microbiology; Rome

Topics: Cerebrovascular Disorders; Disease; Dreams; Gout; Greece; History, 17th Century; History, 18th Century; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; History, Ancient; Humans; Rome; Scabies

Topics: Disease; Greece; Health; History of Medicine; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; History, Ancient; History, Medieval; History, Modern 1601-; Humans; Rome

Topics: Disease; Greece; Health; History, 16th Century; History, 18th Century; History, 19th Century; History, Ancient; Philosophy; Philosophy, Medical; Rome