A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Healing Arts of Greece and Rome

by J.C. McKeown

There are few disciplines as exciting and forward-looking as medicine. Unfortunately, however, many modern practitioners have lost sight of the origins of their discipline. A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities aspires to cure this lapse by taking readers back to the early days of Western medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. Quoting the actual words of ancient authors, often from texts which have never before been translated into English, J. C. McKeown offers a fascinating glimpse at the origins of surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, pharmacology, diet and nutrition, and many other fields of medicine.

This book features hundreds of passages from Greek and Roman authors, with gentle guidance from McKeown, giving a vividly direct picture of the ancient medical world, a world in which, for example, a surgeon had to be strong-minded enough to ignore the screams of his patient, diseases were assumed to be sent by the gods, medicine and magic were often indistinguishable, and no qualifications were required before setting oneself up as a doctor. On the other hand, McKeown reveals that some ancient medical attitudes were also surprisingly similar to our own. Beyond the practice of medicine, McKeown highlights ancient views on familiar topics, such as medical ethics and the role of the doctor in society. A fascinating exploration of the bizarre - and sometimes grotesque - medical beliefs of the past, A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities will delight anyone with an interest in the history of medicine or the ancient world.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ancient History, Greece, Reference, Science, Medical

286 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2016

About the author

J. C. McKeown is Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and the author of Ovid's Amores.

Reviews

[Jeanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF at 61%

This isn't a bad book per say, it just wasn't what I expected. If I had known that this book insist entirely of passages from various ancient texts with the author making very little comment I probably would have finished it.

The passages in themselves were interesting but like I said, I expected the author to voice his opinion at least a few times rather than only provide a little context for some of the passages.

[Bogdan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Științele medicale au existat, se pare, într-o formă sau alta încă din preistorie. Dar, volumul de față se concentrează doar asupra medicinei aplicate în zona bazinului mediteranean de către învățații greco-romani în perioada antică clasică și maxim până la căderea Imperiului Roman în apus.
Precum și celelalte opere ale aceluiași autor, eminentul profesor american, și aceasta se înscrie cu brio într-un calapod clar și bine determinat: este o înșiruire de maxime, citate, zicale sau știați-că-uri din diverse opere grecești sau romane din perioada mai sus menționată care subliniază, în general, trei idei principale; că strămoșii noștri practicau medicina, că aveau cunoștințe foarte greșite față de ce știm în prezent, că în mare parte din cazuri medicina lor funcționa și salva destule vieți (evident în puține cazuri, niciun tratament va fi mai bun decât orice tratament). O carte ușurică, aproape umoristică prin natura sa (la modul hai să râdem de doctorii care credeau că uterul se plimbă prin corpul femeilor și le cauzează tot felul de stări emoționale), la care (din nou) munca practică a autorului a constat în indexare, catalogare și editare. A se servi, după indicațiile sale, în doze mici, zilnice sau nu, în orice caz regulate, fără a face însă exces - ca orice bun medicament.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is hilarious!

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Galen, one of the ancient world's most revered physicians, once said, "The only difference between doctors in Rome and highwaymen is that the doctors do their work in the city, not in the mountains."

What a cynical viewpoint from one of the best of his profession! Obviously, attitudes toward health care were as controversial in the ancient world as they are now, judging from all of the anguish expressed lately by members of the U.S. Congress. It is with these controversies in mind that J.C. McKeown, Professor of Classics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison collected quotes from the ancient sources to produce A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities: Strange Tales and Surprising Facts from the Healing Arts of Greece and Rome.

McKeown groups his quotes by category, including medicine, religion and magic, the doctor in society, attitudes towards doctors (that included the quote above), anatomy, sex matters, women and children, preventative medicine, treatment and diagnosis, and cures (many dubious if not outrageous.)
Much of the "wisdom" of the ancients he includes in his text leaves you scratching your head or, in some cases, outright appalled. Individuals whose teachings have been the foundation of medical ethics for centuries have expressed sentiments towards the healing arts that I certainly did not expect.

For example, Hippocrates himself once said "I shall begin with a definition of what I consider medicine to be, it consists of freeing patients from their disease, dulling the intensity of diseases, and not taking on hopeless cases, since medicine can do nothing for them."

He goes on to explain, "Some people criticize the medical art because of doctors who refuse to take on hopeless cases. They claim that those they do take on would recover by themselves, while they do not touch those who do need help. If medicine really is an art, they assert, it should cure all alike...But, whenever someone suffers from a disease that is too strong for the resources available to medicine, there should be no expectation that such an affliction can be overcome through medicine."

Hippocrates, the so-called "father of medicine" sounds like an ancient insurance company executive!

Other quotes, though, elicited a smile. Pliny the Elder in his Naturalis Historia opines, "It is better to have sexual intercourse infrequently, though it revitalizes sluggish athletes, restores a husky voice, and cures back pain, dull vision, mental problems, and depression."

Some even cloaked a hint of truth within their admonitions. In his On Medicine, Aulus Cornelius Celsus warns, "People with weak constitutions —most city dwellers and practically everyone who is keen on literature belong in this category — need to monitor their health more carefully than other people, so that by taking precautions they may compensate for the deficiencies in their physical well-being or in their environment or in their activities."

Apparently, Celsus believed anyone who read much must obviously be the Roman version of a couch potato!

One reviewer pointed out that McKeown's little book is best consumed in small bites and I would tend to agree. It is not written as a page turner and McKeown has not made any effort to interpret the remarks or even provide some degree of context to them. But, it certainly raised my awareness of such issues as eugenics in the classical world (see my resulting blog post, Ancient Eugenics: Much More Than Just Selective Infanticide), the ancient practice of talk therapy (I thought it was a modern construct), and that the ancients, though famous for their culinary binges, even dealt with anorexia. In other words, it made me think!

[Joseph Adelizzi, Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

There’s a saying that we are where we are because we are standing on the shoulders of giants. In some cases that is true, but McKeown’s book makes it clear that we are where we are from a medical perspective because we are standing on the toes of hobbits. I don’t mean that disparagingly. For one thing, I love hobbits. For another, we learn in a series of small steps, each step integral to the previous and the next.

Granted some of the approaches described in this book seem hilariously outlandish. There was the cure for a snakebite - grind up a set of hippopotamus testicles. And opening the book right now to a random location I read, “Uninhibited fornication cures dysentery.” Hippocrates said that; if a doctor today espoused that belief he or she would be known as a “Hippocratic oaf.”

After apologizing for the poor pun of the previous sentence, let me add that my sentence does remind me of another observation I had while reading the book. Whenever there was a bifurcation based on gender - for example in the section on how ancients thought the sex of a child was determined - it was disheartening to see how the conventionally regarded less palatable option always pertained to the female. If robust vs. thin were the options, robust lead to male while thin lead to female. Right vs. left, left lead to female. I was dismayed at how many times this demented dichotomy held sway.

I thought the book could have benefited with a bit more context for the various “cures” presented, but even so, A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities was a fun read. It shows how far we have come, and how far we can still go.

Gotta go - can’t have elevenses roll around with me having missed second breakfast.

[Alisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was quite entertaining.

I learned a lot from this book about the ancient medical profession. It was basically on thin ice, the foundations were made from nonsensical observations - from using cow dung to using bats to giving yourself an erection. 😭

Mostly interested in how animal and human milk is used to treat diseases here. Quite enlightening.

[Wilbur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as interesting as his other Cabinets.

[Elizabeth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating and a bit funny. Better read in dribs and drabs than in one sitting.

[Bryce · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of lists, essentially, interesting anecdotes in paragraph form. Bathroom reading for history majors.