- The Art of Healing in Ancient Greece

Catalog description

This course surveys the art of healing in ancient Greece, and how it manifested in theory and practice. Students study the activities of individual healers (doctors, midwives, pharmacists, temple attendants), the nature and function of spaces dedicated to healing (cult sanctuaries, doctors’ homes), and the experience of patients. Students also engage the ancient concepts of health and illness, ideas about public health, and the ways Greek writers used disease as a metaphor for social breakdown and political violence.