This volume contains revised and extended versions of twenty-six papers presented at the 9th International Colloquium on Ancient Latin Medical Texts, ‘Language and Context in Latin Medical Texts of the Pre-Salernitan Period’, held at the University of Manchester in 2007. While originally the speakers presented their papers in alphabetical order, a thematic arrangement was deemed more appropriate for the purposes of publication, and this comprises three sections: Graeco-Roman Medicine, Medical Language and Sociolinguistics; Texts, Transmission and Reception; and Words, Meanings and Lexical Fields. There is, perhaps inevitably, a significant amount of overlap with regard to the contents of these three sections, and among the individual papers themselves. This is not necessarily a flaw, however, as these papers generally serve to complement rather than contradict each other, several of them having grown out of collaborative research projects between scholars and institutions.
The first section, Graeco-Roman Medicine, Medical Language and Sociolinguistics, contains seven papers that approach aspects of both medical and non-medical works: H. von Staden examines the presentation of parts of the body and the body as a whole in Celsus’ De medicina; F. Le Blay the presentation of the pores in the writings of Lucretius and Seneca; B. Maire the interactions of medical, social and cultural discourse in Mustio’s Gynaecia; M. Baldin the medical terminology used by Plautus, Sallust and Juvenal; and D. Crismani the treatment of lovesickness in Apuleis’ Metamorphoses. More generally, G. Marasco argues that, far from being ignorant and intent on reproducing works of the past, physicians were undertaking research and formulating new theories that would later prove crucial during the Middle Ages.
The second section, Texts, Transmission and Reception, contains eleven papers, and it is here that a number of significant new discoveries are presented for the first time: S. Sconocchia publishes four excerpts from the antidotos hiera Pacchi Antiochi; M. Cronier offers some new fragments of one of the three surviving ancient translations of Dioscorides’ De materia medica; A. F. Rodriguez puts forward a fragment of De uirtute uini and a chapter on herba peonia from Thessalus of Tralles’ De plantiis; and A. G. González presents the Agriocanna glossary as an addition to the Hermeneumata medicobotanica uetustiora.
The third section, Words, Meanings and Lexical Fields, contains eight papers that focus on certain aspects of the medical and non-medical terminology utilised in medical texts, from the names of specific diseases and conditions (digestion, haemorrhois) to the concepts of love (amo and amor) and childhood (puer/puella and infans), to the physical processes by which medicinal remedies were prepared (pounding, pulping and grinding). M. Pardon-Labonnelie incorporates both Latin medical texts and the words inscribed upon collyrium stamps in her discussion of the names of eye diseases, while P. Gaillard-Seux examines the possible contextual reasons for Pliny the Elder’s apparent preoccupation with bites and poisonous substances.
Befitting an international colloquium, contributions are written in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. There are some inconsistencies in the way that they are presented. Some papers include detailed abstracts, others single sentences; some provide abstracts in both English and another language; in the majority of cases the abstracts are in a different language to the paper itself, and the choice of the language of the abstract in relation to the language of the paper is not standardised. Several variations on the Harvard System are utilised for referencing, and quotations from ancient sources are offered in Latin, Greek, English and other languages, or not at all, depending on the paper in question. There is only one illustration (a colour reproduction of MS. Bodley 130, an image that is also reproduced on the cover of the volume), but there are tables throughout. The volume does offer extensive indices (of ancient sources, and Greek and Latin words, forms and phrases) and an exhaustive general bibliography, collated from the bibliographies included in all twenty-six papers and divided into sections: catalogues of manuscripts; editions of ancient and medieval texts (since AD 1700 and before AD 1700); dictionaries, grammars and concordances; and studies for ease of use.
Ultimately, Body, Disease and Treatment in a Changing World is a valuable resource for scholars of ancient and medieval medicine.
