THE HEALING CLASSICS

  Society of Classical Studies 156th Annual Meeting   JANUARY 2-5, 2025   PHILADELPHIA   Call for Papers for Panel Sponsored by the Society for Ancient Medicine   “Medical Modernities”   Organized by Aileen Das (University of Michigan) and Calloway Scott (University of Cincinnati)   When reflecting on the causes for the errors in Galen’s writings, the medieval Islamicate physician-philosopher Abū Bakr al-Rāzī (d. c. 925 CE) proposes in his Doubts about Galen (Koetschet 2019) that the ‘arts never cease progressing towards and approaching perfection’. Additional discoveries, he continues, are more easily reached because ‘what took the ancients a long time to find out comes to their successors very quickly’. Al-Rāzī seems to be exceptional in his forthrightness about the advantages contemporary, or ‘modern’, physicians have over their forebearers in the practice of their craft. There is a rich body of scholarship (e.g., von Staden 2009; Tieleman 2023) that has tr

  International conference: Caelius Aurelianus: Medicine and Medical Tradition Organised by Chiara Thumiger, Krystal Marlier Sept 14, 2023 – Sept 15, 2023 Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Unter den Linden 6, Room 2249a 10099 Berlin Description:   This event is part of the DFG-funded research project “ Mental Health in Late Antique Medicine: Caelius Aurelianus on Mental Disorders ” based in the Department of Classics at the CAU University in Kiel, Germany. PI: Chiara Thumiger (Cluster of Excellence Roots, CAU Kiel; Visiting scholar, HU Berlin) The objective of this conference is to explore in a new light the work and influence of the late antique medical writer Caelius Aurelianus. Caelius Aurelianus is the author of a major treatise  De morbis acutis et chronicis (On Acute and Chronic Diseases)  as well as of the  Gynaecia  and  Medicinales Responsiones  which only survive in fragments. It has been several decades since the last dedicated conference on him and his work; it is now time to

Here are a number of links to the  Society for Ancient Medicine and Pharmacology ( with thanks to Colin Webster ): - Main website: https://www.societyancientmedicine.org/ - Subscribe to Listserv: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd2l30arVqmYmQtT2_DrOWZtYi6enxqALFaKO_9HhxVO8FPYA/viewform - New blog, THE ROOTCUTTER: https://www.societyancientmedicine.org/the-rootcutter  

  Link to the introductory PPT:  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ivDT8P2ntHJEOia0gTwg79IMmUVYYa-X/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107177301818078364586&rtpof=true&sd=true

Programme: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_zAUxqacG3hGCjZ0_JLnXWjSHBpPrA3D/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107177301818078364586&rtpof=true&sd=true   Abstracts: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1QcC5kYUvmhRxYF3t9dPOr53yF-Z7Hle8/edit?usp=sharing&ouid=107177301818078364586&rtpof=true&sd=true

      “A properly critical medical humanities is also a historically grounded medical humanities.”* What potential relevance does the experience of Graeco-Roman antiquity have to the emerging field of the critical medical humanities and their mission to ‘humanise’ today’s medical and healthcare practice, education and research? This two-day workshop brings together specialists from around the world to engage in an interdisciplinary dialogue about healthcare and the conceptualization of well-being and illness, with a specific emphasis on what role Graeco-Roman antiquity can play for healthcare providers and users today.   By turning to, and drawing inspiration from, ancient Greek and Roman sources (medical or otherwise), the workshop is intended to yield fresh insights into issues such as the ideology of health, narratives of illness, the confrontation with mortality, the importance of professional ethics, and so on. What does it mean to be a (healthy) human being? What is the