Tag: Antiquity
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Imhotep: Humanity’s great physician and polymath
Brian O’DeaIllinois, United States Imhotep is regarded as one of history’s first polymaths, a man whose genius transcended disciplines. Few figures in the ancient world stand as tall as Imhotep. As vizier to the pharaoh Djoser of the third dynasty (c. 27th century BC), he envisioned the first major stone monument, the step pyramid at…
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Hesiod: The creation of the world
Even the most educated members of our generation who have read many of the ancient Greek classics may not be familiar with Hesiod’s works, the Theogony and the Works and Days. Written at about the same time as Homer’s Odyssey and Iliad (around 700 BCE), they reflect the Greek rather than the Hebrew or Mesopotamian…
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Virgil and ancient anthrax
Matthew TurnerHershey, Pennsylvania, United StatesMichael LawsonSan Antonio, Texas, United States The ancient Roman poet Virgil (70–19 BC), widely considered by contemporaries and historians as the greatest of the Latin poets, is most well known today for the epic poem the Aeneid.1 Born to a rural family, Virgil often glorified the agrarian culture of the early…
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Jacob Spon, the French doctor archaeologist
Born in 1647 in Lyon, internationally reputed scholar Jacob Spon pioneered the exploration of the monuments of Greece. Following medical studies at Strasbourg, he received his doctorate in medicine from Montpellier (1668) and subsequently practiced in Lyon to a wealthy clientele. He traveled to Italy, Greece, and Constantinople. In 1675–1676, he visited the Levant with…
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Book review: Galen: An Anthology
Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England Galen was born in 129 AD in Pergamon, an important Greco-Roman city of the Hellenistic period in Asia Minor. Today the remnants and ruins of this ancient city are sited in Bergama, a city in northwest Turkey. Galen started learning his medical craft in Pergamon while simultaneously attending lectures in philosophy.…
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Helen of Troy: A literary and historical consideration of her role as an ancient Egyptian healer
Araam AbboudDayton, Ohio, United States Helen of Troy is typically remembered as the woman whose face launched a thousand ships, a passive figure at the center of a patriarchal epic. But to consider Helen solely as the object of desire and the catalyst of war is to flatten her literary and historical possibilities. Across ancient…
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Ancient medicine on the Nile
Egyptian medicine was already highly advanced by 5000 BCE, and its physicians were highly esteemed. During the Neolithic or last phase of the Stone Age, a flourishing civilization had developed on the fertile banks of the Nile, and around 3100 BCE, King Narmer (or Menes) united what had become the kingdoms of Upper and Lower…
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Plutarch and medical practice (c. 46–120 CE)
Plutarch does not immediately come to mind when one considers the history of medicine. Known primarily as an historian, he was born in Chaeronea when Greece was already part of the Roman Empire. Widely influential, he was an important biographer, philosopher, and teacher, with a deep interest in ethics, morality, and how one should conduct…
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Scales fell from his eyes
George ChristopherMichigan, United States A pivotal moment in the history of Christianity was the conversion of St. Paul while en route to Damascus. “On his journey…a light from the sky suddenly flashed around him…he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? …when he opened…
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Al-Biruni (973–1048)
Asad BakirGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States In the year 973 during the Islamic Golden Age, there was born in the city of Kath in Khwarezm (modern Uzbekistan) one of the greatest polymaths of all time. His complete name was Abu Rayhan Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Biruni; the last name is derived from the Persian word birun…