The utilisation of minerals in Ancient Egyptian medicine from procurement through to use is examined here in a case study investigating the role of sodium salts. The sodium salts, salt and natron are two of the three most commonly used minerals in the Egyptian pharmacopeia. The results of the project are important to medical historians and archaeomineralogists alike in that they formulate a systematic understanding of the way in which minerals were used in medical and medically associated industries. Key sources of salt and natron were examined and the Wadi Natrun was identified as the probable main site of natrun exploitation. A comprehensive study conducted of this area involved examining sources of a historical geographical nature and analysis of mineralogical samples gathered from fieldwork in the Wadi Natrun. From the source of exploitation, natron and salt were sold to the Egyptians to be used in a number of everyday industries as well as for their use in medical and medically associated industries. Salt and natron were found to be used for their astringent and cleansing qualities, and are still being used in traditional medical formulations. Prescription replication showed that these substances worked effectively. Additional research into medically associated industries showed commonality between sodium salts use between all three industries investigated. The results of this research shows that a comprehensive study of the use of minerals in medicine could be established. Primary sites of exploitation of both salt and natron were identified, and minerals from theses sites were categorised and identified. The results showed that the chemical nature of these deposits had changed in the last 2000 years. The results also demonstrate reasons why the language surrounding the term natron needed to be revised. These results have implications for both archaeology and the history of medicine.

O tema desta Tese é a interpretação dos sonhos no tratado hipocrático Da dieta, como uma forma de conhecimento do corpo. Trata-se de uma forma de mapeamento das perturbações do corpo que não são evidentes a uma mera observação diagnóstica e que serve como um tipo específico de prognose para a manutenção da saúde: a prodiagnose. O conhecimento e reconhecimento dos sonhos enquanto material da prodiagnose depende da compreensão do processo de conformação do corpo e da alma, que ocorre por meio da apomímesis toû hólou. Essa apomímesis supõe uma relação analógica de correspondência e reciprocidade entre uma esfera macrocósmica relativa aos elementos de uma parte da phýsis que é imutável, e uma microcósmica, relativa ao corpo, que, por sua vez possui elementos da phýsis passíveis de modificação por meio da dieta. A Tese procura mapear nos escritos hipocráticos coevos ao Da dieta elementos que deem conta de delinear uma conceituação do sono, do sonho, da alma e do corpo. / The theme of this Thesis is the interpretation of dreams in the Hippocratic treatise On Regimen, considered as a form of body knowledge. This body knowledge is a form of mapping bodily disorders that are not visible to a mere medical diagnosis, and also configures itself as a specific type of prognosis in regard of health maintenance: the prodiagnosis. The knowledge and recognition of dreams as prodiagnosis material depends on the understanding of body and soul formation processes, which occur by the concept of apomímesis toû hólou. This apomímesis could be considered as an analog relationship of correspondence and reciprocity between a macrocosmic sphere, regarding a part of phýsis which is immutable, and a microcosmic sphere of the body, which, on the other hand, has some elements of phýsis that can be modified through the diet. The thesis seeks to link some coeval Hippocratic writings to that of On regimen that give account to draw up the concepts of sleep, dream, soul and body.

The utilisation of minerals in Ancient Egyptian medicine from procurement through to use is examined here in a case study investigating the role of sodium salts. The sodium salts, salt and natron are two of the three most commonly used minerals in the Egyptian pharmacopeia. The results of the project are important to medical historians and archaeomineralogists alike in that they formulate a systematic understanding of the way in which minerals were used in medical and medically associated industries. Key sources of salt and natron were examined and the Wadi Natrun was identified as the probable main site of natrun exploitation. A comprehensive study conducted of this area involved examining sources of a historical geographical nature and analysis of mineralogical samples gathered from fieldwork in the Wadi Natrun. From the source of exploitation, natron and salt were sold to the Egyptians to be used in a number of everyday industries as well as for their use in medical and medically associated industries. Salt and natron were found to be used for their astringent and cleansing qualities, and are still being used in traditional medical formulations. Prescription replication showed that these substances worked effectively. Additional research into medically associated industries showed commonality between sodium salts use between all three industries investigated. The results of this research shows that a comprehensive study of the use of minerals in medicine could be established. Primary sites of exploitation of both salt and natron were identified, and minerals from theses sites were categorised and identified. The results showed that the chemical nature of these deposits had changed in the last 2000 years. The results also demonstrate reasons why the language surrounding the term natron needed to be revised. These results have implications for both archaeology and the history of medicine.

No description available.

Divine healing has been often seen in opposition to human healing. The two spheres, have been considered as separate, both in space and in terms of elements involved. Asclepian sanctuaries have been mostly presented as domains of exclusively divine intervention, without any involvement of the human factor, possibly with the sole exception of dream interpretation. However, the written testimonies of temple cures, both those in the form of cure inscriptions dedicated in sanctuaries and the literary accounts of the incubation experience, give us reasons to suppose that the practical side of the functioning of the asklepieia could have assumed the involvement of human medicine, with the extent of this involvement differing in various epochs. Regardless of physicians' participation or its lack in the procedure, the methods applied in sanctuary healing appear to have evolved in parallel to the developments in medicine and their popular perception. Archaeological finds as well as the image of Asclepius as the god of medicine itself seem to confirm this. Nevertheless, by no means should these connections between the two spheres be treated as transforming the space of religious meaning into hospitals functioning under the auspices of a powerful god. Although acknowledging them does entail inclusion of human medicine within the space dedicated to Asclepius, it does not thereby deny the procedure of incubation its religious and metaphysical dimension. On the contrary, it shows that to the Greek mind divine and human healing were not mutually exclusive, but overlapped and coincided with each other, proving that the Greek sense of rationality was quite different from the modern and could comprise far more than what we call today "scientific thinking".

This thesis focuses on the startling ways in which a significant number of early Christian hagiographies feature saints with rotting flesh and suppurative wounds. It explores this phenomenon first by considering ancient medical understandings of diseases such as phagedenic ulcers, gangrene, and the production of pus as evidence of humoural imbalances requiring medical intervention. Then it considers reasons why early Christians developed more positive attitudes regarding these conditions. These include associating rotting flesh with superior spiritual fortitude. They also include non-theological reasons for this phenomenon. This thesis hypothesizes that early Christians also enjoyed looking at rotting saints out of a voyeuristic desire to gaze upon otherwise hidden bodies. Furthermore, it argues that Christians enjoyed exposing themselves to feelings of fear and anxiety because of the neurochemical dimensions the experience stimulated. / May 2017

« Les Grecs et les Latins n’avaient pas fait du trouble de la raison une analyse assez profonde et détaillée pour penser à imposer une dénomination collective à un genre de ses symptômes, fussent-ils les plus remarquables de tous. Ceux dont il est ici question, les hallucinations, ils les avaient observés sans doute, ils les connaissaient. Mais ils ne les rassemblent pas sous une désignation générale ». Ceci était l’avis du médecin L.-F. Lélut (L’amulette de Pascal, 1846), un jugement qui reflète l’image que la science de son époque s’était faite de la réflexion des Anciens sur les pathologies de la perception dans le délire. À l’exclusion des recherches d’empreinte positiviste visant à retrouver les catégories psychiatriques dans certaines manifestations pathologiques dont nous avons trace dans les textes classiques, aucune étude générale n’a jamais été consacrée aux liens établis par les Anciens entre altérations cognitives et désordres morbides de la perception. Cette recherche se propose de combler cette lacune, en étudiant de manière systématique les textes anciens faisant état de cet ensemble d’expériences pathologiques, et ce sur la longue durée, depuis la physiologie présocratique jusqu’aux traités médicaux latins de l’Antiquité tardive. Après une introduction détaillant la méthodologie de recherche et le status quæstionis, le travail s’articule en trois parties. Dans la première, j’analyse les textes de la Collection hippocratique dans lesquels il est question d’altérations des facultés cognitives et sensorielles, retraçant le paradigme de compréhension de ces phénomènes propre aux médecins grecs des Ve-IVe siècles. Une comparaison avec les scènes de folie visionnaire du théâtre attique contemporain permet de faire ressortir la priorité chronologique et spéculative des représentations euripidéennes de la vision morbide comme phénomène trompeur, en opposition à l’image archaïque du visionnaire comme maître de vérité – un trait dont la médecine rationnelle saura aussitôt tirer profit à sa manière dans ses descriptions des syndromes hallucinatoires. La deuxième partie du travail retrace l’histoire de la réflexion philosophique antique sur les troubles de la perception depuis Alcméon jusqu’à Épictète, à travers le double prisme de la physiologie de la perception et de la gnoséologie. Refusant et distançant le modèle matérialiste des Présocratiques, Platon et Aristote articulent ouvertement le problème des perceptions altérées de la folie à la fois en termes de vérité/fausseté et de reconstruction physiologique, dans le but de repousser les objections relativistes des Sophistes. L’essor du débat hellénistique entre Stoïciens et Académiciens tire son origine d’une opposition semblable entre des conceptions dogmatiques reposant sur une ‘harmonie préétablie’ entre l’homme et les objets de sa connaissance et, d’autre part, les positions sceptiques de ceux qui n’admettent la distinction des sensations de l’homme sain de celle du fou. La substance de ce débat, qui ne s’épuise pas avant la fin de l’Académie platonicienne au Ier siècle av. J.-C., se prolongera dans le Stoïcisme d’époque romaine et sera accueillie de bon gré par la tradition médicale postérieure : dans la troisième partie de l’enquête, une attention spécifique est accordée aux textes de Celse, Arétée de Cappadoce, Asclépiade de Bithynie, Galien, Cælius Aurélien, où l’héritage philosophique hellénistique se greffe sur la tradition clinique et pharmacologique précédente, en donnant lieu à de nouvelles conceptions nosologiques qui serviront de point de départ incontournable à toute réflexion médicale postérieure sur les troubles sensoriels. / «The Greeks and Romans did not analyze the trouble of mind deeply enough to give a common denomination to a kind of its symptoms, as relevant as they may be. They surely observed and knew hallucinations, of which we are talking about. But they did not recollect them under a general definition». This was the opinion of the French physician L.-F. Lélut (L’amulette de Pascal, 1846), a statement which clearly reflects the opinion of scientists of his time about ancient analysis of psychopathological sensory alterations. Exception made for a positivistic interest, aiming at recognizing psychiatric categories in some pathological phenomena depicted in classical literature, no general study has ever been devoted to the relationship between cognitive alterations and pathological disorders of perception. This research intends to address such shortcoming through a long-term investigation of classical texts, by taking into account this cluster of pathological experiences, from Pre-Socratic physiology to the medical treatises of Late Antiquity. This work is structured in three sections: first, a methodological introduction and an analysis of the current state of art leads to an inquiry on Hippocratic texts about cognitive and sensory alterations (5th- 4th centuries BC). A comparison between medical literature and theatrical episodes of visionary madness reveals the chronological and speculative priority of Euripidean representations of morbid visions as deceptive phenomena, in opposition to the archaic image of the visionary as ‘master of truth’. The second part of the thesis focuses on the history of philosophical thought about troubles of perception, from Alcmæon to Epictetus, through the twofold lens of physiology of perception and epistemology. By refusing the Pre-Socratic materialistic model, Plato and Aristotle openly formulated the problem of distorted perceptions of madness in terms of truth and falsehood and physiological explicability, in order to push back sophistic and relativistic arguments. The development of Hellenistic Stoic/Academic debates originated from an analogous opposition between dogmatic conceptions – resting upon a ‘pre-established harmony’ between men and their objects of knowledge – and, on the other side, skeptical objections about the supposed indiscernibility of sane and mad perceptions. The core of this debate, which lasted until the end of the Platonic Academy in the 1st century BC, was perpetuated by the Middle Stoicism and then received by the subsequent medical tradition: in the third section, particular attention is devoted to the treatises written by Celsus, Aretæaus of Cappadocia, Asclepiades, Galen, Cælius Aurelianus, in which the Hellenistic philosophical heritage grafted on to the earlier clinical and pharmacological traditions. This turning point represents the very foundation of every medical consideration about sensory disorders until the end of Classical Antiquity.

La thèse recense les textes médicaux cunéiformes traitant les symptômes mentaux. Elle tente de les insérer dans une conception médicale globale et analyse les expressions employées ainsi que leurs occurrences dans les textes. / The purpose of the dissertation is to gather medical texts with a mental symptomatology. The work introduces the Mesopotamian conception of medicine and analyses the expressions present in the texts.

Texte remanié de : Dissertation (doctoral) : Ruhr-Universität Bochum : 1999. / Textes en allemand, arabe, et anglais. Bibliogr. p. 291-294.

This research project investigates the relationship between pain and the practices of explaining and narrating it to others. Current scholarship argues that the representation of suffering became, during the Imperial period, an increasingly effective and popular strategy for cultivating authority and that this explains the success of Christian culture’s representation of itself as a community of sufferers. One criticism of this approach is that the experience of pain has often been assumed, rather than analysed. Here, I investigate the nature of pain by attending to its intimate relationship with language; pain was connected to the strategies used to communicate that experience to others. I will show that writers throughout the Imperial period were concerned with questions about how to communicate pain and how that act of communication shaped, managed, and alleviated the experience. I investigate this culture along three axes. Part 1, ‘The Sublime Representation of Pain’, investigates the way different authors thought about the capacity of sublime language and rhetorical techniques such as enargeia to effectively communicate pain. I argue that for writers such as Longinus, the sublime offers an opportunity to replicate the traumatic experience of the pain sufferer in the audience or listener—pain is narrated to the audience through a traumatic communicative mode. Contrarily, I show how authors such as Plutarch and Galen were particularly concerned to desublimate the representation of pain, reducing the affective power of images of pain by promoting the audience’s conscious engagement with the text or representational medium. Part 2, ‘Medical Narratives’, examines a conflict between Galen and Aristides over the way language and narrative signified or referred to painful experiences. I show how both writers negotiate the way pain destroys and transcends ordered, structured, narrative by engaging in a process of narrative translation. I will illuminate the difference between scientific, diagnostic narratives which explain and rationalise pain experiences (in the case of Galen) and those which attempt to give witness to the nebulous, ineffable qualities of pain. In Part 3, ‘Narrating Cures’ I investigate ancient practices of psychotherapy. I show how various philosophical consolations were underpinned by an understanding of the power of pain to continually return and overwhelm the individual. I show further that the Greek romances engage in a type of talking cure: the novels use narration and story-telling to help assert the protagonists’ distance from their past traumatic experiences and, thus, allow the individual to overcome their painful past.