This course looks at the history of medicine in the Ancient World from roughly the seventh century BC to the seventh century AD. We will investigate both the development of the theoretical underpinnings of medicine as they develop over time, as well as the practical and social aspects of the dispensation of healthcare within a constantly changing environment. Humoral pathology as developed by Hippocrates and Galen continued to be the scientific framework of medical theory until the nineteenth century, and we will investigate why it was so attractive to generations and generations of physicians both in the East and in the West. However, divergent voices such as those of the so-called 'Empiricist' and 'Methodist' Schools will also be heard.

During the first term, the question of how rational medicine emerged in a highly religious environment will be addressed. Hippocrates, the so-called father of medicine, and the writings within the Hippocratic corpus will come under scrutiny, as well as the medical tradition of Alexandria, where major anatomical progress was made (partly as a result of vivisection of convicted criminals). In the second term, we will look at medicine in the Roman world, notably at the emergence of different schools such as Methodism, and ask ourselves how Galenism was able to eradicate most alternative medical theory and became so canonical that it dominated the period of Late Antiquity and the Medieval world.

Learning: A recurring focus through all the individual topics in the course will be the problems of using the available evidence: numerous texts provide evidence for medical theory, but they cannot always be seen as a reliable source of actual practice, and are not infrequently in conflict with other types of sources such as archeological evidence. We will therefore learn to analyse and evaluate different sources in order to construct a plausible historical narrative.