Introduction
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
Summary
Few areas in classical scholarship have seen such rapid growth as the study of ancient medicine. Over the last three decades, the subject has gained broad appeal, not only among scholars and students of Greek and Roman antiquity but also in other disciplines such as the history of medicine and science, the history of philosophy and ideas, (bio-)archaeology and environmental history, and the study of the linguistic, literary, rhetorical and cultural aspects of intellectual ‘discourse’. The popularity of the subject even extends beyond the confines of academic communities, and ancient medicine has proved to be an effective tool in the promotion of the public understanding of medicine and its history.
The reasons for these changes are varied and complex, and to do justice to all would require a much fuller discussion than I can offer here. In this introductory chapter, I will concentrate on what I perceive to be the most important developments and in so doing set out the rationale of the present collection of papers. Evidently, ancient medicine possesses remarkable flexibility in attracting interest from a large variety of people approaching the field from a broad range of disciplines, directions and backgrounds, for a number of different reasons and with a wide variety of expectations. The purpose of publishing these papers in the present form is to make them more easily accessible to this growing audience.
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- Medicine and Philosophy in Classical AntiquityDoctors and Philosophers on Nature, Soul, Health and Disease, pp. 1 - 42Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005