Ancient Greek Medicine and Biology.

Instead of a midterm, this is your second writing assignment. Due: Monday, 5 May. Please address the questions as noted in § I.A-C. Length: no more than 600 words.

1. We are going to look at thre texts here. The first is taken from the "Hippocratic Corpus" a collection of medical writing that date back to the 5th Cen. B.C.. Though ascribed to Hippocrates, most were written by the ancient equivalent of the "public health officer / city physician" who had been trained in the Hippocratic methods and then were employed by Greek cities. The second text is written by the great physician and biologists Galen (late 2nd Cent., AD). The third is by an historian, Thucydides, describing a plague at Athens. Consider here the following:
   1. How would you characterize
      1. the assumptions about the natural order and
      2. the methodology employed to gain 'understanding' in these cases?
   2. What is the role of observation? How do the two authors use the observations?
   3. What does each author consider relevant to include? What is not included that might appear in a different culture?
2. Medicine:
   1. from the Hippocratic corpus: "in Thasos during autumn, about the time of the equinox to near the setting of the Pleiades [21 Sept., to 8 Nov.], there were many ranins, gently continuous, with southerly winds. Winter southerly, north winds light, droughts; on the whole, the winter was like spring. Spring southerly and chilly; slight showers. Summer in general cloudy. No rain.Etesian [strong, cold, from north]winds few, light, irregular. The whole weather proved southerly, with droughts, but early in the spring a few patients suffered from ardent fevers, and these very mild, causing hemorrhage in few cases and no deaths. There were swellings beside the ears, in many cases on one side, but in most on both; in mosts cases unattended with fever, so that the confinement to bed was unnecessary [probably mumps]. In some cases there was slight heat, but in all the swellings subsided, without causing harm; in no case was there suppuration such as attends swelling of other origin. This was the character of them: flabby, big, spreading, with neither inflammation nor pain, in every case the diapppeared without a sign. The sufferers were youths, young men and men in their prime, usually those who frequented the wrestling school or gymnasia. Few women were attacked [could these detail be relevant to the spread of the disease?]. Many had dry coughs which brought up nothing when the coughed, but their voices were hoarse. Soon thereafter, though in some cases after some time, painful inflammations accurred either in one testicle or in both, sometimes accompanied with fever, in other cases not. Usually they caused much suffering. In other respects the people had no ailments requiring medical assistance."
   2. Galen.
      Text and Model:
   3. By comparion: Note the passage in Thucydides: Not many days after their arrival in Attica the plague first began to show itself among the Athenians. Neither were the physicians at first of any service, ignorant as they were of the proper way to treat it, but they died themselves the most thickly, as they visited the sick most often; nor did any human art succeed any better. Supplications in the temples, divinations, and so forth were found equally futile, till the overwhelming nature of the disaster at last put a stop to them altogether...All speculation as to its origin and its causes, if causes can be found adequate to produce so great a disturbance, I leave to other writers, whether lay or professional; for myself, I shall simply set down its nature, and explain the symptoms by which perhaps it may be recognized by the student, if it should ever break out again...That year then is admitted to have been otherwise unprecedentedly free from sickness; and such few cases as occurred all determined in this. As a rule, however, there was no ostensible cause; but people in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath. These symptoms were followed by sneezing and hoarseness, after which the pain soon reached the chest, and produced a hard cough. When it fixed in the stomach, it upset it; and discharges of bile of every kind named by physicians ensued, accompanied by very great distress. In most cases also an ineffectual retching followed, producing violent spasms, which in some cases ceased soon after, in others much later. Externally the body was not very hot to the touch, nor pale in its appearance, but reddish, livid, and breaking out into small pustules and ulcers. But internally it burned so that the patient could not bear to have on him clothing or linen even of the very lightest description; or indeed to be otherwise than stark naked. What they would have liked best would have been to throw themselves into cold water; as indeed was done by some of the neglected sick, who plunged into the rain-tanks in their agonies of unquenchable thirst; though it made no difference whether they drank little or much. Besides this, the miserable feeling of not being able to rest or sleep never ceased to torment them. The body meanwhile did not waste away so long as the distemper was at its height, but held out to a marvel against its ravages; so that when they succumbed, as in most cases, on the seventh or eighth day to the internal inflammation, they had still some strength in them. But if they passed this stage, and the disease descended further into the bowels, inducing a violent ulceration there accompanied by severe diarrhoea, this brought on a weakness which was generally fatal. For the disorder first settled in the head, ran its course from thence through the whole of the body, and, even where it did not prove mortal, it still left its mark on the extremities; for it settled in the privy parts, the fingers and the toes, and many escaped with the loss of these, some too with that of their eyes...An aggravation of the existing calamity was the influx from the country into the city, and this was especially felt by the new arrivals. As there were no houses to receive them, they had to be lodged at the hot season of the year in stifling cabins, where the mortality raged without restraint. The bodies of dying men lay one upon another, and half-dead creatures reeled about the streets and gathered round all the fountains in their longing for water.
      
3. Each group should prepare a short report addressing the concerns raised in sections I, A-C.