Greek medicine: therapeutics

Totelin, Laurence ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9576-1643 2026. Greek medicine: therapeutics. Perilli, Lorenzo, ed. History of Life Sciences and Medicine 1: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, Wiley-ISTE, pp. 213-224. (10.1002/9781394446209.ch9)

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Abstract

This chapter offers an overview of the three ancient branches of therapeutics, drawing mainly on medical texts, composed between the 5th and 4th centuries BCE (the Hippocratic Corpus) and the 7th century CE (Paul of Aegina), as well as archaeological material such as remains of pharmacological preparations and surgical instruments. Ancient therapeutics dealt both with the healthy and the sick body and indeed also with the mind. Dietetic and pharmacological treatments could, to an extent, be carried out by laypeople or by laypeople supervised by physicians; surgery, on the other hand, had to be performed by specialists. Modern scholars have placed much emphasis on the innovative character of Greek dietetics, seeing it as the most prestigious branch of ancient therapeutics. Ancient pharmacological treatises reveal large areas of overlap between medicine and other arts, such as cooking, cosmetics and perfumery, dyeing and painting, gem making and magic.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	Wiley-ISTE
ISBN:	9781789452082
Last Modified:	21 Apr 2026 13:53
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/186530

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