HISTORY OF ANCIENT MEDICINE

• outline the history of medicine with the help of many evidences related to the Mediterranean area and distributed over a wide time span from the archaic age to the Late Antiquity; within these chronological coordinates runs the Western medical thought from a magical and superstitious initial phase to a scientific-philosophical terminal phase
• present the main nosological, diagnostic and therapeutic theories developed by ancient physicians in relation both to individual and epidemic diseases
• define the spaces and the techniques of intervention of specialists in relation both to the progresses of medical knowledges and to the relationship with the patient, whose figure experienced a heightened interest with the advent of Christianity
• describe and compare the doctor’s position in the Hellenistic and Roman Imperial age, highlighting similarities and differences from the social, economic and legal points of view

Frontal lessons.

• sources and research methods: treaties, inscriptions, medical prescriptions in the papyri, archaeological and paleopathological remains
• “Homeric”, folk and sacerdotal medicine
• scientific medicine and evolutionary stages: Hippocrates; the Hellenistic age and the medical “sects”; the Imperial period and the figure of Galen; the Late Antiquity
• health and illness, care and healing: environment and climate; pathologies and diagnosis; epidemics; hygiene and therapies (dietetic, pharmacological and surgical); tools, medicines and places of recovery
• medical specialties: obstetrics and gynecology; ophthalmology; dentistry; psychiatry
• the doctor-patient relationship: the professional ethics; legal liability and penalties; the awareness and cooperation of the patient; the triad physician-disease-patient in Christian mentality
• social and economic status of the doctor: slave, freed and free; court, municipal and military physician; the woman and the practice of medicine

I. Andorlini-A. Marcone, Medicina, medico e società nel mondo antico, Firenze Le Monnier Università 2004, pp. 1-232.

V. Boudon-Millot, Galeno di Pergamo. Un medico greco a Roma, Roma Carocci Editore 2016, pp. 9-263.

G. Arena-M. Cassia, Marcello di Side. Gli imperatori adottivi e il potere della medicina, Acireale-Roma Bonanno Editore 2016, pp. 139-264.