Essays

First Assessed Essay:

deadline Monday, 29 November 2010

The bibliographical information indications provide a starting point; for further help with locating the pertinent literature, please contact the module convener.

  1. “Presocratic philosophy uses the same methods as Hippocratic medicine.” Discuss.
    • James Longrigg, Greek Rational Medicine: Philosophy and Medicine from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians (London: Routledge, 1993)
    • Patricia Curd and Daniel W. Graham, The Oxford Handbook of Presocratic Philosophy (Oxford: OUP 2008); ch. 15 (P. J. van der Eijk). ‘The Role of Hippocratic Medicine in the Formation of Early Greek Thought’; available here.
  2. “Quartan fever can be identified as modern malaria”. Discuss.
    • R. Sallares, A. Bouwman, C. Anderung, ‘The Spread of Malaria to Southern Europe in Antiquity: New Approaches to Old Problems’, Medical History 48 (2004), 311–328; available here
    • M. Grmek, ‘Porotic Hyperostosis, Hereditary Anemias and Malaria’ in Grmek, Diseases in the Ancient Greek World (Baltimore 1989), 245–83, available here
  3. ‘Émile Littré was right in regarding On Ancient Medicine as written by the historical Hippocrates.’ Discuss.
    • J. Jouanna, Hippocrates (Baltimore 1999)
    • M. J. Schiefsky, Hippocrates On Ancient Medicine, Studies in Ancient Medicine 28 (Leiden 2005)
  4. “Edelstein is correct in viewing the Hippocratic Oath as a document used in a Pythagorean Community.” Discuss.
    • L. Edelstein, ‘The Hippocratic Oath’, in: id., Ancient Medicine. Selected Papers of Ludwig Edelstein (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1967),
    • H. von Staden, ‘"In a pure and holy way": Personal and Professional Conduct in the Hippocratic Oath?’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 51 (1995), 404–37; available here
  5. “Temple medicine and Hippocratic medicine are diametrically opposed to each other.” Discuss.
    • E. J. and L. Edelstein, Asclepius. Collection and Interpretation of the Testimonies, 2 vols. (repr.: Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998)
    • M. Horstmanshoff, ‘Asclepius and temple medicine in Aelius Aristides' Sacred Tales’, in: H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and M. Stol (eds), Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine, Studies in Ancient Medicine 27 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004), 325–41
  6. ‘The vivisection of criminals in third-century BC Alexandria was justify, as it led to anatomical progress.’ Discuss.
    • H. von Staden, Herophilus. The Art of Medicine in Early Alexandria (Cambridge: CUP, 1989)
    • V. Nutton, Ancient Medicine (London: Routledge, 2004), ch. 9–10 (pp. 128–156)
  7. ‘Women’s low place in Greek society is reflected in the Greek medical tradition.’ Discuss.
    • H. King, Hippocrates’ Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece (London 1998)
    • L. Dean-Jones, Women’s Bodies in Classical Greek Science (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994)

Second Assessed Essay:

deadline Monday, 28 February 2011

  1. “Empiricists in Antiquity adopted methods similar to those used in modern medicine.” Discuss.
    • M. Frede, ‘An Empiricist View of Knowledge: Memorism,’ in Epistemology, ed. Stephen Everson, Companions to Ancient Thought 1 (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990), 225–50
    • R. J. Hankinson, ‘Epistemology’, in id, R. J. Hankinson, The Cambridge Companion to Galen (Cambridge 2008), 157–83
  2. ‘Medicinal magic follows its own rationality’. Discuss.
    • H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and M. Stol (eds), Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine, Studies in Ancient Medicine 27 (Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2004)
    • G. E. R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason and Experience: Studies in the Origin and Development of Greek Science (Cambridge: CUP, 1979; repr. London: Gerald Duckworth & Co.: 2001)
  3. ‘Galen used anatomy to refute his competitiors and make them look bad, not to further medical knowledge.’ Discuss.
    • H. von Staden, ‘Anatomy as Rhetoric: Galen on Dissection and Persuasion’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 50 (1995), 47–66; available here
  4. “Greek melancholy and modern depressions are the same disease”. Discuss.
    • P. E. Pormann, Rufus of Ephesus: On Melancholy (Tübingen 2008)
    • R. Klibansky, E. Panofsky, and F. Saxl, Saturn and Melancholy (London 1964)
  5. ‘The Romans invented the modern hospital.’ Discuss.
    • P. A. Baker, Medical Care for the Roman Army on the Rhine, Danube and British Frontiers in the first, second and early third centuries AD (Oxford 2004)
    • P. Horden, ‘The Earliest Hospitals in Byzantium, Western Europe, and Islam’, Journal of Interdisciplinary History 35 (2005) 361–89; available here
  6. ‘The religious beliefs of Jews and Christians hampered medical progress.’ Discuss.
    • O. Temkin, Hippocrates in a World of Pagans and Christians (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991)
    • P. Horden, ‘Mediterranean Plague in the Age of Justinian’, in: The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian ed. M. Maas (Cambridge 2005), 134–160; available as e-book here.
  7. “Islamic medicine merely repeats, and, at times, distorts Greek medical knowledge without adding anything useful.” Discuss.
    • P. E. Pormann, E. Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh 2007), ch. 2 ‘Medical Theory’
    • P. E. Pormann, ‘Medical Education in Late Antiquity: From Alexandria to Montpellier’, available here