The thirteen original studies collected in this volume range from detailed paleographical examinations of individual papyri, manuscripts and printed books to scholarly interpretations of particular medical texts in their cultural, intellectual and historical contexts.
Subjects handled include an early testimony to the philosopher Empedocles, the development of general disease concepts from specific cases in the Hippocratic writings, the use of the word 'contagion' in the Roman medical writer Caelius Aurelianus, a Vienna manuscript which presents the contents of several Galenic treatises in the form of stemmatic diagrams, and the reception of Galen's medical system in Montpellier around 1300.
With contributors from seven countries writing in four languages, this volume provides convincing evidence of the vitality and richness of scholarship in ancient medicine at the close of the twentieth century.