Full Description
In Mental Illness in Ancient Medicine: From Celsus to Paul of Aegina a detailed account is given, by a range of experts in the field, of the development of different conceptualizations of the mind and its pathology by medical authors from the beginning of the imperial period to the seventh century CE.
New analysis is offered, both of the dominant texts of Galen and of such important but neglected figures as Rufus, Archigenes, Athenaeus of Attalia, Aretaeus, Caelius Aurelianus and the Byzantine 'compilers'. The work of these authors is considered both in its medical-historical context and in relation to philosophical and theological debates - on ethics and on the nature of the soul - with which they interacted.
Contents
Contents
Acknowledgments
Primary Texts and Abbreviations
Introduction. Disease Classification and Mental Illness: Ancient and Modern Perspectives
Chiara Thumiger and P. N. Singer
Part 1 Broader Reflections on Mental Illness: Medical Theories in their Socio-Intellectual Context
1 Between Insanity and Wisdom: Perceptions of Melancholy in the Ps.-Hippocratic Letters 10-17
George Kazantzidis
2 "Not a Daimōn, but a Severe Illness": Oribasius, Posidonius and Later Ancient Perspectives on Superhuman Agents Causing Disease
Nadine Metzger
Part 2 Individual Authors and Themes
3 Athenaeus of Attalia on the Psychological Causes of Bodily Health
Sean Coughlin
4 Archigenes of Apamea's Treatment of Mental Diseases
Orly Lewis
5 Mental Perceptions and Pathology in the Work of Rufus of Ephesus
Melinda Letts
6 Mental Disorders and Psychological Suffering in Galen's Cases
Julien Devinant
7 Galen on Memory, Forgetting and Memory Loss
Ricardo Julião
8 Stomachikon, Hydrophobia and Other Eating Disturbances: Volition and Taste in Late-Antique Medical Discussions
Chiara Thumiger
9 "A Most Acute, Disgusting and Indecent Disease": Satyriasis and Sexual Disorders in Ancient Medicine
Chiara Thumiger
10 Mental Derangement in Methodist Nosography: What Caelius Aurelianus Had to Say
Anna Maria Urso
11 Mental Illnesses in the Medical Compilations of Late Antiquity: The Case of Aëtius of Amida
Ricarda Gäbel
Part 3 Philosophy and Mental Illness
12 Making the Distinction: The Stoic View of Mental Illness
Marke Ahonen
13 Philosophical Psychological Therapy: Did It Have Any Impact on Medical Practice?
Christopher Gill
14 Galen's Pathological Soul: Diagnosis and Therapy in Ethical and Medica
l Texts and Contexts
P. N. Singer
Bibliography
Index
