Prof. Dr. Elizabeth Craik (University of St. Andrews): "Environment, Biodiversity and Ethnicity in the Black Sea Region: Evidence from the ‘Hippocratic’ Corpus"
Lecture organised by project A03 „The Transfer of Medical Episteme in the ‘Encyclopaedic’ Compilations of Late Antiquity“ (Head: Prof. Dr. Philip van der Eijk)
This talk addresses questions concerning the transfer of medical knowledge among peoples of the Black Sea Region and its incorporation into the ‘Hippocratic’ corpus of medical writings. Prof. Craik explores the extent to which medical texts of classical Greece (fifth to fourth centuries BC) contained in the ‘Hippocratic Corpus’ serve as novel adjuncts to more familiar sources of evidence for the period. This ‘Hippocratic’ material imposes its own interpretative constraints. The corpus is large and divergent in both subject matter and stylistic character. Thus, of over sixty works, the content of some is devoted to anatomy and physiology, of some to gynaecology, of some to techniques of surgery, and of some to medical ethics; in form, there are some long developed treatises polished in expression, some short rudimentary sets of notes apparently for personal reference, and some rather allusive collections of aphorisms. All texts in the collection are anonymous. Further, there are no helpful dedications and few references to contemporary authors or events. Dating is almost always problematic and provenance uncertain. There are constant underlying questions of origin, authorship and intended readership: who wrote what for whom, when and where? Despite these constraints, it will be seen that the Hippocratic material serves as a valuable additional resource for understanding the transmission of knowledge from the Black Sea Peoples to the ‘Hippocratic’ writers.
Zeit & Ort
17.12.2018 | 10:00 s.t.
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Institut für Klassische Philologie
Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin
Hauptgebäude, Westflügel, 2.OG, Raum 3053