HPS 120 | Classics 139: Medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome
Autumn 1999-00
Students enroll in Classics 139 , 4 units
Professor Reviel Netz
Contemporary medical practice traces its origins to the creation of
"Scientific Medicine" by Greek doctors such as Hippocrates and Galen. Is
this something modern medicine can be proud of? In this course we shall
follow the scientific achievements and the ethical limitations of ancient
medicine. We shall see that although many contemporary ideas and practices
have their beginning in the ancient world, this world was in fact very
different from the modern one. This was a world where "scientific medicine"
was no more than another form of "alternative medicine". "Scientific
medicine" had to compete in the marketplace of ideas, struggling to be
recognized. In such a world, the boundaries between the scientific and
social aspects of medicine were difficult to draw. If indeed this is
background for the creation of modern medicine, this can help us understand
better the interaction between medicine and society in our own culture.
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