Woman As an Object of Medical Knowledge in the Roman Empire, from Celsus to Galen

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Woman As an Object of Medical Knowledge in the Roman Empire, from Celsus to Galen WOMAN AS AN OBJECT OF MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE IN THE ROMAN EMPIRE, FROM CELSUS TO GALEN by Rebecca Elizabeth Flemming University College, London Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD liiiC iLONOmJ ProQuest Number: 10106553 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest. ProQuest 10106553 Published by ProQuest LLC(2016). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT This thesis investigates the constructions of woman as an object of medical knowledge in the Roman imperial world over a period of some two centuries, extending from Celsus, writing during the reign of Tiberius, to Galen, whose career ended under the Severans, and including all the medical texts which survive from the intervening years. It is an investigation into the processes and matrices of that construction, as well as the substance of the medical woman thus constituted; an investigation of the form and modality of Roman medical thinking about woman as much as its contents. The first part is an introduction to the historically specific social, cultural and discursive formation of Roman imperial medicine, thus providing the framework within which the position and positivity of the medical woman as she emerges from the range of individual medical works that are then analysed in detail must be understood. The second part deals with that section of the extant medical literature of this period which precedes Galen; a literature which can be divided according to whether it stands inside or outside the sectarian traditions of the logikoi, empirikoi and methodikoi. Inside are the more theoretically elaborated treatises of physicians such as Aretaeus the Cappadocian and Soranus of Ephesus, as well as various anonymous and pseudonymous tracts; and outside, but in dialogue with both these currents and the more implicit knowledge of folk traditions, lie works such as those of Pliny the Elder and Dioscorides. The third part examines the patterns of Galen’s thinking about woman within the broader fabric of his overall medical and cosmological system, the fullest and most influential such system passed down from antiquity. This fullness allows issues of the processes and modality of the construction of woman as an object of medical knowledge to be explored particularly deeply in this case. CONTENTS Acknowledgements 4 Prologue 5 Introduction 10 PART ONE AN INTRODUCTION TO ROMAN MEDICAL DISCOURSE 24 Chapter 1 Framing a Discourse: the Social and Cultural Formation of Roman Medicine 26 Chapter 2 Inside a Discourse: a Rough Guide to the Conceptual World of Medicina 52 PART TWO BEFORE GALEN 86 Chapter 3 The Medical Woman between Folk Tradition and Philosophy 89 Chapter 4 Sects and the Medical Woman 136 PART THREE GALEN 198 Chapter 5 Women, Power and Knowledge in the World of Galen’s Works 201 Chapter 6 Galen’s Woman 229 Conclusion 294 Appendix One 300 Bibliography 307 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Numerous people have contributed to this thesis in too many ways to mention, but I would particularly like to thank Dr. Riet van Bremen and Prof. Michael Crawford, my supervisors, for all their good advice and generous assistance; Prof. Vivian Nutton for giving me the benefit of his great expertise in the area; Jason Davies for reading and commenting on almost all of this, in some form, and Prof. John North, Prof. Bob Sharpies and Adam Sutcliffe for reading some of it; Dr. Suzanne Bobzien and Dr. David Langslow for answering my questions; and all the gang at the Institute of Classical Studies, for listening and contributing to more papers on Galen in the last few years than most people do in a life-time, and for just being there. Many thanks also to William Flemming, my modem European language adviser, and his Polish assistant Hubert Krotkiewski; to Dr. Charles Burnett’s Arabic Reading Class at the Warburg Institute for making Rhazes’ Shukâk *alâ Jâlînûs accessible to me in a way it would not have been otherwise; and to Dr. Irene Zwiep for dealing with bits of Galen in Medieval Hebrew for me. Last, but certainly not least, many thanks to all the librarians in whose libraries I have worked over the last few years, most especially to those in the Library of the Institute of Classical Studies, where most of this was written, and also to those in the Libraries of the Wellcome Institute, the Warburg Institute, the Radcliffe Science Library in Oxford, and to the staff of the manuscript room of Cambridge University Library. PROLOGUE 1. REFERENCES References to modem works are initially made in fiill, giving author, title, date and page where appropriate, subsequent references may appear in an abbreviated, but nonetheless distinctive, form. References to ancient works generally follow the book, chapter and section division of the edition used; exceptions to this rule are noted. For the sake of clarity, references to the key texts on which this thesis is based also include edition, page and line (where lines are numbered); and where the text survives only in a language other than that in which it was composed that is also noted. Texts in the Corpus Mediconm Graecorum (CMG) or Corpus Mediconm Latinorum (CML) series are referred to by volume number, as are the Galeni Scripta Minora (SM) otherwise reference is by editor as follows: Alexanderson Galen HEPI KPIEEON Ed: B. Alexanderson {Studia Graeca et Latina Gothoburgensia XIII 1967) Dgr Die griechische Empirikerschule Comp & Ed: K. Deichgraber (Berlin: Weidmann: 1930) DR Oeuvres de Rufus d*Éphèse Ed & trans: Ch. Daremberg & C.-E. Ruelle (Paris: Baillière: 1879) Drabkin Caelius Aurelianus Gynaecia Ed: M.F. Drabkin & I.E. Drabkin {BUM Supplement 13 - 1951) Thessalos von Tralles Ed: H.-V. Friedrich (Meisenheim am Gian: Haini: 1968) FW Galen On Respiration and the Arteries Ed & trans: D J. Furley and J.S. Wilkins (Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1984) Garofalo Galeno Procedimento Anatomici I-III Ed & trans: I. Garofalo (Milan: Rizzoli: 1991) H Galeni De Usu Partium /-// Ed: G. Helmreich (Leipzig: Teubner: 1907-1909) Jones The Medical Writings o f Anonymus Londinensis Ed & trans: W.H.S. Jones (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 1947) K Galeni Opera Omnia I-XX Ed: C.G. Kuhn (Leipzig 1821-3) Kraus "Kitab al-akhlâq li-Jâltnûs " Ed: P. Kraus {Bulletin of the Faculty o f Arts, Cairo University 5 [1937] 1-51) M C. Plini Secundi Naturalis Historiae I-VI Ed: C. Mayhoff (Leipzig: Teubner: 1892-1906) Mohaghegh Rhazes Kitdb Shukûk *alâ Jâlînûs Ed: M. Mohaghegh (Tehran 1993) Pritchett lohannis Alexandrin! Commentaria in Librwn de Sectis Galeni Ed: C D. Pritchett (Leiden: E.J. Brill: 1982) Puschmann Alexander von Tralles I II Ed & trans: Th. Puschmann (Amsterdam: Hakkert: 1878-9) Rose/A Anecdota Graeca et Graecolatina II Ed: V. Rose (Berlin: Duemmler: 1870) Rose/S Sorani Gynaeciorum Vetus Translatio Latina Ed: V. Rose (Leipzig: Teubner: 1882) Scribonii Largi Compositiones Ed: S. Sconocchia (Leipzig: Teubner: 1983) SC609 Agnellus of Ravenna Lectures on Galen*s De Sectis Ed & trans: Seminar Classics 609, SUNY {Arethusa Monographs 8 - 1981) Simon Sieben Bûcher Anatomie des Galen I Ed: M. Simon (Leipzig: Hinrichs: 1906) Stoll Die *Lorscher Arzneibuch* Ed & trans: U. Stoll (Sudhoffs Archiv Beiheft 28 - 1992) W Pedanii Dioscorides De Materia Medica I-III Ed: M. Wellmann (Berlin: Weidmann: 1907-1914) Walzer Galen On Medical Experience Ed & trans: R. Walzer (London: Oxford University Press: 1940) Z Aetii Sermo Sextidecimus et Ultimus Ed: S. Zervos (Leipzig: Mangkos: 1901) 2. TRANSLATIONS AND TRANSLITERATIONS Translations are my own except where noted, and follow the original as closely as possible in clear English. Many key, or technical, terms are transliterated and explained rather than directly "translated" in order to achieve greater clarity and precision in capturing and communicating their signification. Names are, however, largely maintained in the latinised form in which they have entered the English language. 3. TITLES AND ABBREVIATIONS Titles of ancient medical texts (and other important but unfamiliar texts) are initially given in full in their original language, or in the language(s) in which the versions closest to the original survive, but always in the Roman alphabet, its abbreviation is then introduced and used thereafter. A full listing of these abbreviations can be found in 8 Appendix One. Abbreviations of the titles of Galen’s works are those proposed by R.J. Hankinson in Appendix 2 of his translation and commentary on Galen On the Therapeutic Method Books I and II (1991) 238-247. These are, like those customarily used for the works of the Hippocratic Corpus, in the traditional Latin; whereas my own abbreviations are derived directly from the titles themselves, and therefore remain in Greek, Latin, Arabic etc. as appropriate. Other abbreviations are those familiar from The Oxford Classical Dictionary or H.G. Liddell, R. Scott and H.S. Jones A Greek-English Lexicon. Abbreviations of modem journals titles are those used in L*Année Philologique, and abbreviations of standard publications and general works of reference are those used in The Oxford Classical Dictionary with the following additions: AMSCC Ancient Medicine in its Socio-Cultural Context I II Eds: P.J. van der Eijk, H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and P.H. Schrijvers (Amsterdam: Rodopi: 1995) RE Real-Encyclopûdie der classischen Alterumswissenschaft INTRODUCTION WOMEN, MEDICINE AND HISTORY: A METHODOLOGICAL MANIFESTO Human life, as it inherently encompasses both health and illness, implies the medical enterprise.
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