It is thus with regard to the disease called Sacred: it appears to me to be nowise more divine nor more sacred than other diseases, but has a natural cause from the originates like other affections. Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance and wonder, because it is not at all like to other diseases. And this notion of its divinity is kept up by their inability to comprehend it, and the simplicity of the mode by which it is cured, for men are freed from it by purifications and incantations. But if it is reckoned divine because it is wonderful, instead of one there are many diseases which would be sacred; for, as I will show, there are others no less wonderful and prodigious, which nobody imagines to be sacred. The quotidian, tertian, and quartan fevers, seem to me no less sacred and divine in their origin than this disease, although they are not reckoned so wonderful. And I see men become mad and demented from no manifest cause, and at the same time doing many things out of place; and I have known many persons in sleep groaning and crying out, some in a state of suffocation, some jumping up and fleeing out of doors, and deprived of their reason until they awaken, and afterward becoming well and rational as before, although they be pale and weak; and this will happen not once but frequently. And there are many and various things of the like kind, which it would be tedious to state particularly. They who first referred this malady to the gods appear to me to have been just such persons as the conjurors, purificators, mountebanks, and charlatans now are, who give themselves out for being excessively religious, and as knowing more than other people. Such persons, then, using the divinity as a pretext and screen of their own inability to of their own inability to afford any assistance, have given out that the disease is sacred, adding suitable reasons for this opinion, they have instituted a mode of treatment which is safe for themselves, namely, by applying purifications and incantations, and enforcing abstinence from baths and many articles of food which are unwholesome to men in diseases. Of sea substances, the surmullet, the blacktail, the mullet, and the eel; for these are the fishes most to be guarded against. And of fleshes, those of the goat, the stag, the sow, and the dog: for these are the kinds of flesh which are aptest to disorder the bowels. Of fowls, the cock, the turtle, and the bustard, and such others as are reckoned to be particularly strong. And of potherbs, mint, garlic, and onions; for what is acrid does not agree with a weak person. And they forbid to have a black robe, because black is expressive of death; and to sleep on a goat’s skin, or to wear it, and to put one foot upon another, or one hand upon another; for all these things are held to be hindrances to the cure. All these they enjoin with reference to its divinity, as if possessed of more knowledge, and announcing beforehand other causes so that if the person should recover, theirs would be the honor and credit; and if he should die, they would have a certain defense, as if the gods, and not they, were to blame, seeing they had administered nothing either to eat or drink as medicines, nor had overheated him with baths, so as to prove the cause of what had happened. But I am of opinion that (if this were true) none of the Libyans, who live in the interior, would be free from this disease, since they all sleep on goats’ skins, and live upon goats’ flesh; neither have they couch, robe, nor shoe that is not made of goat’s skin, for they have no other herds but goats and oxen. But if these things, when administered in food, aggravate the disease, and if it be cured by abstinence from them, godhead is not the cause at all; nor will purifications be of any avail, but it is the food which is beneficial and prejudicial, and the influence of the divinity vanishes.

Neurologic concepts in the Homeric epics -- Hippocrates and the Corpus Hippocraticum -- A neurology text before there was neurology -- On the sacred disease -- Surgical texts and diagnosis guides -- Wounds of the head -- Hippocratic medicine and neurologic conditions -- Ancient Greek ideas of cognition -- The separation of the nerves from other fibers -- The Hellenistic pursuit of neuroanatomy -- The Hippocratic oath and a modern digression

Uses current knowledge of epilepsy and epileptic seizures as a yardstick against which to interpret the thinking of the past. Attempts to trace the development of thought about individual aspects of the understanding of epilepsy one after the other and on a chronological basis.

This volume offers a fresh analysis of the position of On the Sacred Disease in the scientific tradition by giving due weight to the influence on it of magico-religious medicine and sophistic oratory.

Young Kristin Seaborg had the world at her fingertips: a loving family, happiness and security, early admission to medical school--until the frightening diagnosis of epilepsy threatened to destroy both her career path and her health. Living in constant fear that her seizures would intensify and prevent her from practicing medicine, Kristin kept her condition a closely guarded secret, leading a tenuous double life as patient and practitioner. A memoir of discovery, acceptance, and hope, The Sacred Disease chronicles Kristin's tenacious fight for a seizure-free life. Remarkably, although Kristin's knowledge and expertise continue to develop as a pediatrician and mother, her experiences as a vulnerable patient provide the most valuable lessons of all.

This work is a sampling of the Hippocratic Corpus, a collection of ancient Greek medical works. At the beginning, and interspersed throughout, there are discussions on the philosophy of being a physician. There is a large section about how to treat limb fractures, and the section called The Nature of Man describes the physiological theories of the time. The book ends with a discussion of embryology and a brief anatomical description of the heart.

This volume makes available in English translation a selection of Jacques Jouanna's papers on Greek and Roman medicine, ranging from the early beginnings of Greek medicine to late antiquity.

This is the tenth volume in the Loeb Classical Library's ongoing edition of Hippocrates' invaluable texts, which provide essential information about the practice of medicine in antiquity and about Greek theories concerning the human body. Here, Paul Potter presents the Greek text with facing English translation of five treatises, four concerning human reproduction (Generation, Nature of the Child) and reproductive disorders (Nature of Women, Barrenness), and one (Diseases 4) that expounds a general theory of physiology and pathology.

A preeminent classics scholar revises the history of medicine. Medical thinking and observation were radically changed by the ancient Greeks, one of their great legacies to the world. In the fifth century BCE, a Greek doctor put forward his clinical observations of individual men, women, and children in a collection of case histories known as the Epidemics. Among his working principles was the famous maxim "Do no harm." In The Invention of Medicine, acclaimed historian Robin Lane Fox puts these remarkable works in a wider context and upends our understanding of medical history by establishing that they were written much earlier than previously thought. Lane Fox endorses the ancient Greeks' view that their texts' author, not named, was none other than the father of medicine, the great Hippocrates himself. Lane Fox's argument changes our sense of the development of scientific and rational thinking in Western culture, and he explores the consequences for Greek artists, dramatists and the first writers of history. Hippocrates emerges as a key figure in the crucial change from an archaic to a classical world. Elegantly written and remarkably learned, The Invention of Medicine is a groundbreaking reassessment of many aspects of Greek culture and city life.

Aelius Aristides' Sacred Tales offer a unique opportunity to examine how an educated man of the Second Century CE came to terms with illness. The experiences portrayed in the Tales disclose an understanding of illness in both religious and medical terms. Aristides was a devout worshipper of Asclepius while at the same time being a patient of some of the most distinguished physicians of his day. This monograph offers a textual analysis of the Sacred Tales in the context of the so-called Second Sophistic; medicine and the medical use of dream interpretation; and religion, with particular emphasis on the cult of Asclepius and the visual means used to convey religious content.