Health and Medicine in the Ancient World

Ancient world is in many ways very foreign to us Religions Attitudes to social groups

One thing we will always have in common: Our bodies

How many generations between us and 500 BC? Roughly 2500 / 25 = 100 Not enough for natural selection to alter human

species Health today is health in antiquity Effective medicine today is effective then, as well

Basis for a Scientific Study of Past

Observations of physical conditions and material

+ Understanding of human health today

= Clear conclusions about human state in the past

... But is this history?

The Imperatives of the Human Body

150 lb, active adult needs: 2870 kcal/day 2390 ml fluid per day

These cannot effectively be stockpiled How did human communities respond to

these needs? What percentage of people were well-fed? Was starvation endemic?

The Meaning of the Body

Healing

What did the ancients do to heal each other?

What institutions and professions existed to undertake this?

What medical theories underpinned these?

How did they arise?

Historical Materialism

“The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once realised, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarized as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.”

Karl Marx Critique of Political Economy 1859

Idealist History E. g., R. G.

Collingwood's The Idea of History History is the study of

ideas The method of

historical study consists in the historian rethinking the thoughts of the past Not collection of lore Not smug correction

of the past

Health and Medicine in the Ancient World

Health: Necessities of the human body

Without which history ceases The providing of which is a large part of human

activity in the ancient world

Medicine: Ideas, changing and competing, that pertain to

the maintenance of human life and its quality What is the interplay of these two? Does

one predominate?