Abstract
Abstract
This chapter queries the aspects of Roman medical literature specific to its cultural milieu that transcend utilitarian medical practice. It begins by surveying the reception of Galen’s oeuvre in later centuries, highlighting which texts were copied and which have been lost due to disinterest. Following on these results, it considers two topics which later medical practitioners deemed to be less pragmatic and which are, therefore, more likely to be culturally specific artifacts of Roman medicine: the extensive commentaries and philological work on the texts of previous medical authorities, both Hippocratic and non-Hippocratic, and the reportedly avid interest in therapeutically irrelevant anatomy. It argues that both of these topics, equally popular with Galen and with his peers, served socially specific needs for the Roman doctor.
Publisher
Oxford University PressOxford
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