Louise Cilliers

• D. Litt. et Phil.
• Fellow at University of the Free State

In 1536 a short poem with the title De medicina was published in Basel by Janus Cornarius in the editio princeps of Marcellus Empiricus' De medicamentis liber.¹ Cornarius based his edition on the Codex Laudunensis 420² (9th/10th century), a manuscript which in the centuries after the publication suffered damage, losing inter alia the preface which...

According to the Old Testament (1 Samuel 5 and 6) the Ark of the Covenant was on occasion captured from the Israelites by the Philistines and taken to their own country. Subsequently, a plague, attributed to the Ark, erupted among the Philistines, and led to the Ark being returned to Israel after seven months. The plague consisted of abscesses or t...

In Ou Egipte is mummifikasie met uitgebreide reseksie of uitsnyding van organe geassosieer, maar geen kennis is geneem van die morfologie van die brein nie. Griekse skrywers van die sesde en vyfde eeue v.C. het die brein aanvanklik gesien as die setel van intelligensie, die orgaan van sensoriese waarneming en gedeeltelik die oorsprong van sperma. P...

A large number of poisonous substances of plant, animal, and mineral origin were described by Dioscorides, Scribonius Largus, Pliny the Elder, and others. Of these, the plant materials were used most often for poisoning, the animal materials were largely fictitious, and the mineral toxins least well understood and seldom used for deliberate poisoni...

In die somer van 326 v.C. is Alexander die Grote se Asiatiese veroweringsveldtog van sewe jaar onverwags aan die bolope van die Indus-rivier gestuit – nie deur vyandelike aksie nie, maar deur die weiering van sy soldate om verder ooswaarts te trek. ’n Moontlike rede vir sulke drastiese optrede deur ’n leer wat hul koning tot op daardie stadium blin...

On 24 August A.D. 79 Vesuvius erupted, burying neighbouring Pompeii in ashes, stones and pumice, Herculaneum in volcanic mud, and Stabiae in ashes. Thousands of people lost their lives in this disaster. This was the second recorded eruption, the first being on 5 February A.D. 63.1 In the centuries thereafter Vesuvius has erupted nearly 50 times, mo...

The first recorded instance of poisoning in ancient Rome occurred in 331 BC when, during an epidemic, a large number of women were accused of concerted mass poisoning. Overreaction of the community in times of stress particularly, when scapegoats for unexplained phenomena are sought, might have played an important role in this and many subsequent i...

'n Geliefde figuur in die Klassieke wereld is ons ontneem. Elbert Lucas (Tot) de Kock, wat na sy aftrede twee en 'n half gelukkige jare saam met sy vrou, Grace, in die idilliese Oos Transvaalse omgewing van Nylstroom deurgebring het, is op 30 Januarie 1996 na ' n kort siekbed aan kanker oorlede.

In this article the views of the ancient Greeks and Romans on the etiology of infectious diseases are assessed. It appeared that these views were remarkably correct in many respects: Hippocrates for instance believed that an imbalance in the humours preceded disease, while we know today that a malnourished body predisposes a patient to epidemic dis...

The aim of this article is to highlight a particular contribution in the history of medicine made by ancient physicians more than two millennia ago. In modern times the taking of the pulse as clinical tool is self-evident, but the fact that doctors in Graeco-Roman times and the Medievel Ages, when so little was known of physiology and especially of...

In this overview of city planning in Graeco-Roman times, starting with Greek gridiron street planning and functional city zoning in the 9th century BC, emphasis is placed on those aspects related to urban health and recreational activities. Etruscan-Roman expertise in hydraulic engineering facilitated the availability of ample water supplies, e.g....

p>The stature of Galen (129–200 AD) as the outstanding physician of antiquity is challenged only by Hippocrates (5th century BC). Born in Pergamum, educated there, in Smyrna, Corinth and Alexandria, he spent most of his life in Rome as practicing physician and compilor of an enormous body of scientific literature which not only survived him, but be...

em>Funerary practices and death pollution in ancient Rome: Procedures and paradoxes The Romans’ attitude towards the dead at the end of the Republic and high tide of the Empire was mainly determined by religious views on the (im)mortality of the soul and the concept of “death pollution”. Pollution through contact with the dead was thought to affec...

Die wortels van moderne geneeskunde kan teruggevoer word na die Klassieke era van Griekeland en Hippokratiese geneeskunde in die besonder. Die Corpus Hippocraticum word vandag veral onthou vir die besondere etiese kode wat daarin opgeneem is. In hierdie bydrae word aspekte van geneeskundige etiek in die Grieks-Romeinse era in oorsig geneem.

When one thinks of the once mighty Roman Empire, a vision of the proverbial “eternal city” of Rome with its beautiful white colonnaded marble buildings comes to mind. However, Rome did not last eternally, in fact, more than 200 years before the traditional date of the “fall” of the Roman Empire in the West (AD 476), the Golden Age of Rome had shift...

Alle inligting dui daarop dat die inwoners van Oud-Egipte die dood nie gesien het as beëindiging van die lewe nie, maar as ’n oorgangspunt vanaf ’n aardse bestaan na ’n ewigdurende lewe na die dood (Taylor 2001:7). Voorbereiding hiervoor was dan ook sistematies en uitvoerig deel van die alledaagse lewe, in besonder die religieuse komponent daarvan....

Gaius Iulius Caesar Germanicus Augustus (Caligula) is in antieke tye beskryf as ’n despotiese keiser wie se wreedheid, megalomania en onvoorspelbaarheid toegeskryf is aan kranksinnigheid. Tydens die afgelope eeu het navorsers soos Willrich (1903), Balsdon (1934) en Barrett (1989) na grondige herevaluasie van alle inligting egter tot die gevolgtrekk...

Willem Johannes Richards is op 21 Mei 1922 in Middelburg, Transvaal, gebore asdie oudste van nege kinders. Nadat hy hier gematrikuleer het, gaan hy na diePotchefstroomse Universiteit vir Christelike Hoër Onderwys waar hy in 1942 dieBComm-graad behaal. Hierna verander hy van studierigting, en na die neem vanaanvullende vakke by die Universiteit van...

The evolution of horticulture (gardening) in antiquity, as distinct from largescale agriculture and forestry, is traced from its humble origins in ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, to the Graeco-Roman era. Little is known about horticulture in the Greek Bronze Age and Homeric period, but from the 5th century onwards, public rather than private gardens...

p>In antiquity bees and honey had a very special significance. Honey was indeed considered to drip from heaven as the food of the gods. As an infant Zeus was fed on honey in the cave of Dicte, by bees and the beautiful Melissa, whose name became the Greek word for “bee”. When the ancient Romans wished you luck they said “May honey drip on you!” and...

em>Funerary practices, the hereafter and pollution in ancient Greece Funerary practices in ancient Greece were influenced by contemporary views on the hereafter and concepts of pollution, but also by an endeavour to limit costs and to prevent the burial procedure from causing inconvenience to the community or creating the opportunity of exploitati...

Christianity made its appearance at a time when religion, even magic, played a much more important role in health care than it does today. As Ferngren and Amundsen (1994:2957-2960) point out, this is not necessarily because the ancients were more credulous or superstitious than we are today, but mainly because they realized that so much of life, in...

Akhenaten was a unique pharaoh in more ways than one. He initiated a major socio-religious revolution that had vast consequences for his country, and possessed a strikingly abnormal physiognomy that was of note in his time and has interested historians up to the present era. In this study, we attempt to identify the developmental disorder responsib...

Cancer of the breast, seen by Galen as the commonest cancer of his time, was probably first mentioned by Hippocrates in the 5th century BC. A single case history was described but no specific treatment mentioned. For centuries no further cases were described, until Cato, 2nd century BC, advocated cabbage poultices for all tumours and breast cancer...

Asclepius is first mentioned by Homer as leader and physician in the Trojan War. Later, during the 5th century, he became known as the god of healing, and in this century the Asclepian cult of healing became established in Epidaurus. This healing cult, which was accommodated by empiric (Hippocratic) physicians of the time, endured for close on ten...

The Roman Empire was ruled by 77 emperors between 27 BC and AD 476 (503 years); 18 (23,4%) of them held sway during the Early Empire (27 BC–AD 193, 220 years), and 59 (76,6%) during the Late Empire (193-476, 283 years). On the average emperors in the Early Empire ruled for a longer period (12,7 years as against 6,0 years), and died slightly later (...

Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, is reviewed as a historical person and in terms of his contribution to medicine in order to distinguish fact from fiction. Contemporary and later sources reveal that many (possibly untrue) legends accumulated around this enigmatic figure. The textual tradition and the composition of the socalled Corpus Hippocrat...

In this overview of the effect of early Christianity on empirical medicine in Graeco-Roman times, it is shown that the first two centuries represented peaceful cooperation, since the Christians saw secular medicine as a legitimate form of supernatural cure and not as magic. Christianity brought caring communities with indiscriminate personalised ca...

There is some evidence that a kind of hospital already existed towards the end of the 2nd millennium BC in ancient Mesopotamia. In India the monastic system created by the Buddhist religion led to institutionalised health care facilities as early as the 5th century BC, and with the spread of Buddhism to the east, nursing facilities, the nature and...

The notion that inadequate health services might have been one of the reasons for the fall of the Roman Empire is investigated. Despite many factors preventing the early development of an adequate public health service, the Romans had achieved much by the 5th century AD. Apart from many laws promoting public health, various official measures were t...

The effect of the volcanic eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, which led inter alia to the death of Pliny the Elder, is reviewed. Pliny, the admiral of the Roman imperial fleet, wished as scientist to witness the event from close by and set sail in the direction of Vesuvius, but got trapped in Stabiae, a few kilometers from Pompeii, where he died togeth...

Since time immemorial the snake has been venerated as an enigmatic creature with supernatural powers. As a snake and staff symbol it is also traditionally associated with the healing arts, either as the single-snake attribute of Asclepius, or as the doublesnake attribute of Hermes. In this article the mythological basis for this symbol is reviewed....

The circumstances of Alexander’s death are reviewed. Since contemporary sources vary in their accounts of the reason for his death, they are briefly reviewed and assessed. The account of Alexander’s final illness is then discussed as recorded in the King’s Journal and the Liber de morte testamentumque Alexandri Magni. The theory that he was poisone...

The epidemic that struck Constantinople and the surrounding countries during the reign of Justinian in the middle of the 6th century, was the first documented pandemic in history. It marked the beginning of plague as a nosological problem that would afflict the world until the 21st century. The symptoms of the disease, as described by various conte...

The crucifixion of Christ as a medico-historical event is reviewed. He was probably crucified on a short Tau-cross, and died within 6 hours (probably even within 3 hours). This is not an exceptionally short period of time, and there is no reason to postulate unusual causes for his death. He probably died from the classical progressive asphyxia synd...

In the summer of 326 BC, Alexander the Great’s triumphal seven-year campaign in Asia was unexpectedly halted in the upper reaches of the Indus river — not by enemy action, but by the troops’ refusal to march further eastwards. A possible reason for such drastic action by an army which had, until that point, followed its king with blind devotion, wa...

The causes of death of popes are reviewed in the light of existing knowledge, and analysed in terms of four periods: First Period (64-604) Early Middle Ages (604-1054), Late Middle Ages and Renaissance (1054-1492), and Post-Renaissance (1492-2000). Among those who died of natural causes, multi-disease pathology was commonly present as is to be expe...

In contrast with the struggle of 19th and 20th century women all over the world to be admitted to medical schools, women in ancient Greece and Rome were apparently increasingly at liberty to practise medicine from the 4th century BC onwards. The available evidence offers conclusive proof of this more tolerant attitude. The sources are few in number...

Funerary practices in ancient Greece were influenced by contemporary views on the afterlife and by concepts of pollution, but also by a desire to limit costs and a need to prevent the process of burial from causing inconvenience to the community or providing an opportunity for exploitation by those with ulterior political motives. Plato (Hippias Ma...

Lead was known to the ancients from at least the 4th millennium BC, but its use increased markedly during Roman times, to the extent that it became a health hazard. Mines and foundry furnaces caused air pollution; lead was extensively used in plumbing; domestic utensils were made of lead and pewter, and lead salts were used in cosmetics, medicines...

The Roman attitude towards the dead in the period spanning the end of the Republic and the high point of the Empire was determined mainly by religious views on the (im)mortality of the soul and the concept of the “pollution of death”. Contamination through contact with the dead was thought to affect interpersonal relationships, interfere with offic...

Claudius, fourth Caesar of the Roman Empire, proved himself an able administrator, but physically and emotionally handicapped from birth. His parents, members of the imperial family, considered him mentally deficient and he was isolated from the general public and put in the care of an uneducated tutor who firmly disciplined the youngster. The histor...

Astrology is a pseudo-science based on the assumption that the well-being of humankind, and its health in particular, is influenced in a constant and predictable fashion by the stars and other stellar bodies. Its origins can probably be traced back to Mesopotamia of the 3rd millennium BC and was particularly popular in Graeco-Roman times and the Med...

St. Augustine, one of the most important Latin church fathers was, as educated man, also informed about the natural sciences, including medicine. In his prolific output of 93 major literacy works, he heavily influenced the development of Western Christianity. His publications often included references to matters of medical interest and in his sermo...

The didactic letters prefacing Marcellus's On Drugs are examined. It appears that one reason for writing such didactic letters was to equip the addressee with sufficient knowledge to enable him to avoid consulting a doctor, since there was great dissatisfaction with the quality of service rendered and the fees charged by doctors. The letters in the...

Die gevorderde hantering van afwykings van bene en gewrigte, Ortopedie, het in Mesopotamië en veral in antieke Egipte sy ontstaan gehad. Dit was egter die Griekse geneeshere wat in die laat 5de eeu v.C. in die Hippokratiese Korpus ’n merkwaardig doeltreffende samevatting van die ortopediese beroep vasgelê het, waarop vir minstens ’n 1 000 jaar nie...

Aretaeus of Cappadocia (probably first century AD) is one of the least known physicians of antiquity. Not quoted by contemporary medical writers, he was unknown to Arabic physicians of medieval times. His very significant contributions to medicine only became known when a manuscript was discovered and published in Latin in the sixteenth century. He...

In spite of an array of effective antibiotics, tuberculosis is still very common in developing countries where overcrowding, malnutrition and poor hygienic conditions prevail. Over the past 30 years associated HIV infection has worsened the situation by increasing the infection rate and mortality of tuberculosis. Of those diseases caused by a singl...

As from the 6th century BC Graeco-Roman medical therapy comprised three components, viz. diet and healthy lifestyle (regimen), surgery and medicaments (pharmacotherapy), of which the latter was the oldest. Although the Corpus Hippocraticum (5th century BC), with minor Egyptian influence, contained no text of medicines as such, and seemed to prefer...

Cardiovascular concepts in antiquity were primitive up to the early 5th century BC, when Greek philosopher-physicians like Empedocles and Diogenes divorced human physiology from its previous magico-religious base in order to find answers in the natural sciences. The heart was not initially seen as central to the cardiovascular system – blood (conta...

Although the Mesopotamian civilisation is as old as that of Egypt and might even have predated it, we know much less about Mesopotamian medicine, mainly because the cuneiform source material is less well researched. Medical healers existed from the middle of the 3rd millennium. In line with the strong theocratic state culture, healers were closely...

The roots of modern medicine can be traced back to the 5th century BC when Hippocratic rational medicine originated on the Greek islands of Cos and Cnidos. In this study we examine the way in which practitioners conducted their profession in Graeco-Roman times, as well as their training. Medical training was by way of apprenticeship with recognized...

The last days and death of Cleopatra and Mark Antony are reviewed. Antony died a slow death after an initially unsuccessful suicide attempt by way of a stab wound to the abdomen. It is argued that Cleopatra (and her two servants) probably committed suicide through poisoning, rather than the bite of an asp (viper) as is popularly believed. Death occ...

Weens probleme met die interpretasie van die Oudegiptiese skrif, was ons begrip van geneeskunde in faraoniese Egipte tot heel onlangs baie gebrekkig en dikwels foutief. Hierdie studie gee die jongste sieninge weer oor die stand van geneeskunde in Egipte (3100-332 v.C.) soos afgelei uit inskripsies op geboue en monumente, die geskrifte van historici...

Theories on conception, the production of seed, the determination of the sex of the foetus, foetal development and parturition as expressed in the Gynaecia, a work of the fourth century AD Roman medical writer, Vindicianus, and the theories of Graeco-Roman predecessors ranging from the fifth century BC to the second century AD in which the Gynaecia...

In antiquity crucifixion was considered one of the most brutal and shameful modes of death. Probably originating with the Assyrians and Babylonians, it was used systematically by the Persians in the 6th century BC. Alexander the Great brought it from there to the eastern Mediterranean countries in the 4th century BC, and the Phoenicians introduced...

In antiquity crucifixion was considered one of the most brutal and shameful modes of death. Probably originating with the Assyrians and Babylonians, it was used systematically by the Persians in the 6th century BC. Alexander the Great brought it from there to the eastern Mediterranean countries in the 4th century BC, and the Phoenicians introduced...

Physiognomy, the discipline which endeavours to deduce from individuals’ exterior features their character, disposition, even destiny, originated in Pre-Socratic times. In this article the development of physiognomy in the Graeco-Roman era is reviewed, with emphasis on seminal publications like the pseudo-Aristotelean Physiognomonica (3rd century B...

The evolution of the hospital is traced from its onset in ancient Mesopotamia towards the end of the 2nd millennium to the end of the Middle Ages. Reference is made to institutionalised health care facilities in India as early as the 5th century BC, and with the spread of Buddhism to the east, to nursing facilities, the nature and function of which...

The evolution of the hospital is traced from its onset in ancient Mesopotamia towards the end of the 2nd millennium to the end of the Middle Ages. Reference is made to institutionalised health care facilities in India as early as the 5th century BC, and with the spread of Buddhism to the east, to nursing facilities, the nature and function of which...

Since time immemorial the snake has been venerated as an enigmatic creature with supernatural powers. As a snake and staff symbol it is also traditionally associated with the healing arts, either as the single-snake emblem of Asklepios, or as the double-snake emblem (caduceus) of Hermes. The mythological basis for this symbolism is reviewed. The As...

The earliest genetic concepts arose from the mists of antiquity. In the 6th century BC the so-called Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers started to postulate concepts based on the assumption that hereditary factors from mother and father were transferred to the child via the male and female semen (or semen equivalent). The Hippocratic doctors (5th and...

Peulplante, wat in Grieks-Romeinse tye ’n voedsame stapelvoedsel was, het ingesluit boerbone (Vicia fava)en waarskynlik bone van die Phaseolus-genus, lensies(Lens culinaris), ertjies(Pisium sativum), peulertjies(Cicer arietinum) en ertjies van die Lathyrus-genus,o.a. grasertjies(Lathyrus sativus). Wiek(Vicia ervilia)is slegs in tye van hongersnood...

In Graeco-Roman times all tumours (Greek: onkoi, abnormal swellings) were considered to be of inflammatory origin, the result of unfavourable humoural fluxes, and caused by an extravascular outpouring of fluid into tissue spaces. The neoplastic nature of tumours is a more recent concept, barely two centuries old. In Hippocratic literature tumours w...

Lead was known to the ancients from at least the 4th millennium BC, but its use increased markedly during Roman times, to the extent that it became a health hazard. Mines and foundry furnaces caused air pollution; lead was extensively used in plumbing; domestic utensils were made of lead and pewter, and lead salts were used in cosmetics, medicines...

The Athenian epidemic of 430-426 BC, at the outbreak of the Peloponnesian War, caused the death of the great statesman, Pericles, decimated the population and contributed significantly to the decline and fall of classical Greece. In his remarkable documentation of the epidemic, Thucydides (who survived the disease) not only left us a clear clinical...

Theatre productions and thrillers have one important quality in common: the success of both depends on the author's ability to arouse and maintain the spectator's/reader's interest. In this article the phenomenon of dramatic suspense and some of the techniques used to create suspense in a thriller and in Roman comedy are discussed. The qualities sh...

Aristotle’s remarks about dramatic suspense in the Poetics are so diffuse and divergent in nature that it seems highly unlikely that he meant them to be regarded as a systematic theory on this subject. Yet his views in this regard - although set down in writing some 2400 years ago - are still in many respects the basis of modern drama theory. The e...

Proefskrif (D.Litt.Et Phil.)-Randse Afrikaanse Universiteit, 1983. - Besit Ook Mikrofichemeester en Argiefeksemplaar.