CLS 160 — Medicine in the Ancient Western World
Quarter: Summer
Instructor(s): Patrick Hunt
Date(s): Jun 24—Jul 29
Class Recording Available: Yes
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Class Meeting Time: 7:00—8:50 pm (PT)
Tuition: $415
Refund Deadline: Jun 26
Unit(s): 1
Status: Registration opens May 18, 8:30 am (PT)
Ancient medicine sometimes appears surprisingly similar to modern medicine. At other times, it exposes what we regard as superstition and ignorance. Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks, and Romans asked many of the same questions about health and disease that we do today. They developed surgical processes that endure and practiced pharmaceutical and psychiatric approaches recognizable in modern science. Medicine in prehistory also surprises us, as we see it preserved in Ötzi the Iceman, the 5,300-year-old mummy from the Alps.
This course surveys ancient Western medicine through its cultures and pioneering individuals. We will encounter Hippocrates, Celsus, Dioscorides, and Galen; examine Babylonian tablets and the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus; and explore important texts, including De Materia Medica, and medical instruments preserved from Pompeii to Northern Europe. We'll study Memphis, Babylon, Alexandria, Cos, Pergamon, and Epidaurus—places where medicine had a long tradition. We may also further push back the threshold for preliterate medicine, as new evidence for Neanderthals in Paleolithic Spain offers clues to possible health practices from astonishing antiquity.
This course surveys ancient Western medicine through its cultures and pioneering individuals. We will encounter Hippocrates, Celsus, Dioscorides, and Galen; examine Babylonian tablets and the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus; and explore important texts, including De Materia Medica, and medical instruments preserved from Pompeii to Northern Europe. We'll study Memphis, Babylon, Alexandria, Cos, Pergamon, and Epidaurus—places where medicine had a long tradition. We may also further push back the threshold for preliterate medicine, as new evidence for Neanderthals in Paleolithic Spain offers clues to possible health practices from astonishing antiquity.
PATRICK HUNT
Former Director, Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project; Research Associate, Archeoethnobotany, Institute of EthnoMedicine
Patrick Hunt is the author of 26 books and is a lecturer for the Archaeological Institute of America. He received a PhD from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Hunt is an elected Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Explorers Club, and he has been a National Geographic Explorer since 2007. His Alps research has been sponsored by the National Geographic Expeditions Council. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) John, F Nunn, Ancient Egyptian Medicine (ISBN 978-0806135045)
(Required) Ralph Jackson, Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum: The Instruments and Accoutrements of Ancient Medicine (ISBN 978-0861592326)
(Required) Ralph Jackson, Greek and Roman Medicine at the British Museum: The Instruments and Accoutrements of Ancient Medicine (ISBN 978-0861592326)