Topic: Ancient Greek Medicine

Appropriate for First Year students.

TimeDaysLocationInstructorGERCreditOPUS Class NumberSyllabus (Tentative)
12:50pm-1:40pm
MWF
Candler Library 101
Cynthia Patterson. HAPW. 41921 TBA.

January 12, 2011- April 25, 2011

Catalog Description: The course demonstrates how literary, artistic, and/or cinematic texts, when understood in relation to the context of their production, can be used to study selected historical themes.

Semester Details:

Although not generally included among the ‘classics’ of ancient literature, ancient medical texts (including extended treatises and lectures as well as ‘case histories’) have much to offer the historian on a variety of topics or themes, including  but hardly limited to the history of medicine and doctoring.  This class introduces students to the challenges and rewards that attend the close reading of texts, bringing their distant stories to a contemporary understanding.  The core reading of the course will be the ancient medical texts themselves, but these will be supplemented throughout with other readings, ancient and modern,  that reflect the ways in which medicine engaged (and still engages) religious and popular traditions, and raises ethical and social issues.  We will also consider specifically the healing practices of the cult of Asclepius and early Christianity.

Required Textbooks, Articles, and Resources

  1. Nutton, Vivian. Ancient Medicine.
  2. Lloyd, ed. Hippocratic Writings.
  3. Gawande, Atul. Complications: A Surgeon¿s Notes on an Imperfect Science.
  4. Cure and Cult in Ancient Corinth .
    American School of Classical Studies pamphlet

The schedule of courses on O.P.U.S. is the official listing of courses, including days and times they meet and the General Education Requirements they satisfy. Students should use course descriptions as general guidelines. Course requirements, grading details, book lists, and syllabi are subject to change.