A Cabinet of Ancient Medical Curiosities
Strange Tales and Disturbing Facts from the Healing Arts of Greece and Rome J C McKeown Oxford University Press 2017 Hb, xiv + 286, illus, $18.95, ISBN9780190610432
(Review amplifiable by my essay,
FT312:32–4. Jim Steinmeyer’s biography (p260) says: “Visiting a physician was an act of desperation for Fort. He distrusted doctors,” adding that Fort’s “slips on medicine” are in the Tiffany Thayer papers.)
As delightful as his earlier ‘Cabinets’ of Greek and Roman Curiosities ( FT268:58;
FT309:60), McKeown and I complete our hat-tricks with this new compendium. A stuffy review ( Classical Review Bryn Mawr
2017.05.05 – online) by Winston Black upbraids McKeown for his “vicious humour” and for preferring entertainment to ‘enlightenment’. This largely ignores McKeown’s professed aim in the series. Still, it’s a cue for remembering among this fortean jamboree some impressive ancient medical ‘firsts’: Hippocrates (e.g.) diagnosed epilepsy correctly, also realised the astonishing properties of aspirin; Greek gynæcologist Soranus (careful how you pronounce his name) – McKeown rightly says he deserves more attention – recognised the condition and seriousness of pre-menstrual tension.
After a nifty self-parodying Preface, McKeown organises his material under twelve rubrics: Medicine, Religion, Magic; Doctors in Society;
Attitudes to Doctors; Some Famous Doctors (expanded in his 12-page Glossary); Anatomy; Sex; Women and Children; Preventive Medicine; Prognosis and Diagnosis; Particular Ailments and Conditions; Treatments and Cures – two general chapters postlude, along with coin images and illustrations (69 b-w) credits.
No Index, this perhaps hardly possible in such an anthology. No Bibliography either. Attention might profitably have been drawn to the countless books and articles ‘Out There’, often arcanely fascinating pieces online (a resource McKeown underplays), for easy instance Helen King’s ‘Galen and the Widow: Towards a History of Therapeutic Masturbation in Ancient Gynaecology,’ Journal
of Gender Studies in Antiquity I (2011), 205–35 – from the Open University.
Each chapter comprises a host of translated extracts from Græco-Roman texts, authors and passages meticulously set out, buttressed by linking commentaries both richly factual – a virtue ignored by Black – and enlivened by McKeown’s infectious humour.
Mining the nuggets could almost fill an entire FT. Readers may reap a richer harvest from Black, who had far more space than I, plus my own aforementioned FT essay.
I dare say many will fastforward to the Sex-tion. Much ‘topical’ stuff here. Pullulates with transgenders (both ways), without any prattling about their ‘rights’. Men with small cocks may be consoled (their women, too) by Aristotle’s claim that big ones are liable to infertility. Those who cannot afford Viagra might consider trying Byzantine Paul of Aegina’s prescription: “Burn a gecko, grind its ashes into fine powder, pour on olive oil, apply to right foot’s big toe, then have sex.”
My favourite, though, of the multifarious remedies is the one advocated by Pliny ( Natural
History 28.76) for headaches: “Tie a woman’s brassiere around the forehead.” Were this better publicised, and shown to work, it would put many pharmaceutical companies out of business.