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Nenonen posted:I think they would have, as even the most primitive societies know this and have explicit rules against it. It's also possible that as an advanced agrarian society they would have had a fairly good understanding of how it worked, as breeding horses or dogs is not so different overall. Yeah, they obviously didn't know the mechanism but given the near-universal taboo, people seem to have been aware of it. I seem to recall the Ptolemies getting a lot of poo poo for it.
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Aug 5, 2012 07:03
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Orkiec posted:I know this part of Rome was most likely not historically accurate, but before Octavian and his sister were about to commit incest, he claimed that incest was a crime against nature because their children often have deformities. Was the ancient world aware of the negative consequences of inbreeding? Probably. We can certainly infer that they were aware of the hereditary aspects of certain impairments, though they often conflated these with things that couldn't possibly be passed on (scars, birthmarks, and so on). For example, Pliny noted that; “deformed children may be born of healthy parents; and healthy children, or children with the same deformity, may be born of deformed parents. Some marks, moles or even scars recur: in some cases a birthmark on the arm appeared in the fourth generation”.
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Aug 5, 2012 13:33
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Here is a group of podcasts by historian Lars Brownworth about Constantinople and the East. They follow the history by focusing on 12 notable rulers, both good and bad, and how their decisions affected the empire. And a question: I know that most gladiatorial fights didn't end with death, but it seems to me that most fights with a weapon would lead to death from infection or debilitating injuries. Did gladiators fight with wooden or blunted weapons? Bigos fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Aug 5, 2012 |
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Aug 5, 2012 21:58
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Bigos posted:And a question: I know that most gladiatorial fights didn't end with death, but it seems to me that most fights with a weapon would lead to death from infection or debilitating injuries. Did gladiators fight with wooden or blunted weapons? They had surprisingly effective medicine (including an understanding of infection and effective prophylaxis and trauma surgery) and gladiators in particular received on the spot care after their fights. Superficial wounds could be effectively treated and their fighting styles didn't incorporate spectacularly lethal things like stabbing in the gut. e: That said they still died a lot, and living through more than 10 matches was exceptional. atelier morgan fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Aug 6, 2012 |
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Aug 6, 2012 20:04
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UberJew posted:They had surprisingly effective medicine (including an understanding of infection and effective prophylaxis and trauma surgery) and gladiators in particular received on the spot care after their fights. Superficial wounds could be effectively treated and their fighting styles didn't incorporate spectacularly lethal things like stabbing in the gut.
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Aug 6, 2012 20:14
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andrew smash posted:do you know of any good sources discussing roman medical practice? As a med student in the US I think it's fascinating. Sadly no, all my knowledge on the subject is secondhand from museums (we have a lot of examples of their surgical equipment) and when it is mentioned in general histories. If anybody else has a good specialist source I'd love to read it myself.
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Aug 6, 2012 20:22
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A good source might be surviving Roman medical texts. Galen and others, I can't remember.
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Aug 6, 2012 20:59
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If you're willing to rise above the Romans for a moment, there are some very interesting texts attributed to Hippocrates. I find the Epidemics fascinating when coupled with a modern commentry, for example. Basically, the text consists of a series of observations about various patients. One patient that sticks out to me was someone who complained about a swollen toe, exhibited certain symptoms, and then died; the modern commentry indicated that it was a snake bite that had done him in. There are also texts on things like fractures, concussions, and trepanning. Here's a link, I have only read some of the texts but they were pretty darn interesting: http://classics.mit.edu/Browse/browse-Hippocrates.html Agesilaus fucked around with this message at 01:52 on Aug 7, 2012 |
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Aug 7, 2012 01:50
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andrew smash posted:do you know of any good sources discussing roman medical practice? As a med student in the US I think it's fascinating. I don't know a good book off-hand though I'm sure they exist. Roman medical tools would be familiar to you, I'll post a picture of a surgical kit later. Most of the equipment is essentially identical to what's used today. Romans didn't have germ theory, but they were aware of infections and had a rudimentary understanding of how to treat them. I remember boiling hot wine being mentioned as a treatment for wounds--aware the alcohol and heat helped but not the mechanism. I think tools were heated too but I wouldn't swear to it. The most famous of the "what, really?" Roman practices was neurosurgery. We know they did it and did it successfully, since we have skulls that have holes showing where the surgeon cut through, and the bone has regrown which proved the patient survived the procedure. The depiction of this being done on Titus Pullo in Rome is about right. Doctors tended to be Greeks or educated slaves. They were in a weird place of being essential but not exactly respected the way they are today. We had some discussion of this earlier, some of the techniques (and the knowledge of anatomy) were improved upon in the renaissance, but overall as far as what could be done and the results, Roman medical care wasn't surpassed until the 1800s. I'd say the discovery of antiseptics (and accompanying understanding of germ theory) was the first real revolutionary improvement over Roman medicine.
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Aug 7, 2012 02:35
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I know this is going a little far afield, but how did Roman medicine compare with contemporary techniques in other areas? Was it the best in the world at its time? The best in Western Europe? Comparable to other Mediterranean societies? What about China or other far-east areas?
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Aug 7, 2012 03:03
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It was by far the best in the world. The only possible competition would've been China but given how lovely Asian medicine still is I can't imagine it being any more effective. Roman medicine had plenty of sacrificing chickens and whatnot, but it was also closer to being a scientific method of medicine than any other group that I'm aware of.
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Aug 7, 2012 03:13
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Grand Fromage posted:The most famous of the "what, really?" Roman practices was neurosurgery. We know they did it and did it successfully, since we have skulls that have holes showing where the surgeon cut through, and the bone has regrown which proved the patient survived the procedure. The depiction of this being done on Titus Pullo in Rome is about right. Do we have any idea of what they were treating? I could imagine them treating internal bleeding or hydrocephalus (relieving fluid pressure, basically) or maybe removing foreign objects but I'm not sure what other techniques could be applied or would have been guessed at (then again, I know less about brain surgery than about Romans  ).Did the Romans understand enough about cancer to try removing tumors surgically? It seems like some cases you'd have a tumor that could be seen or felt that they would know would eventually overtake a patient.
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Aug 7, 2012 05:04
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Base Emitter posted:Do we have any idea of what they were treating? I could imagine them treating internal bleeding or hydrocephalus (relieving fluid pressure, basically) or maybe removing foreign objects but I'm not sure what other techniques could be applied or would have been guessed at (then again, I know less about brain surgery than about Romans I don't think there's much information. I think it was bleeding and pressure as you said, and if the skull was fractured they could clean up the hole and put in a metal plate. It's hard to tell if they took pieces of the brain out since obviously we don't have any Roman brains that sat around for a couple thousand years. Base Emitter posted:Did the Romans understand enough about cancer to try removing tumors surgically? It seems like some cases you'd have a tumor that could be seen or felt that they would know would eventually overtake a patient. No idea.
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Aug 7, 2012 05:07
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Base Emitter posted:Did the Romans understand enough about cancer to try removing tumors surgically? It seems like some cases you'd have a tumor that could be seen or felt that they would know would eventually overtake a patient.
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Aug 7, 2012 06:48
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Drilling a hole in the skull is called trepanning, and it was happening for a while before the Romans. Some skulls with holes in them were found in France that dated to 6500 BC.
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Aug 7, 2012 12:34
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I know that the term cesarian section was named after the method of baby Caeser's delivery, but I don't know if the operation was used with any frequency in ancient Rome, or what the survival rate was.
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Aug 7, 2012 14:28
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I.W.W. ATTITUDE posted:I know that the term cesarian section was named after the method of baby Caeser's delivery, but I don't know if the operation was used with any frequency in ancient Rome, or what the survival rate was. Cesarean section was not a particularly rare practice, though the mother typically died when it was performed. Its purpose was to save the baby when the mother was expiring due to delivery. This remained true until the invention of penicillin in 1928. Kaal fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Aug 7, 2012 |
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Aug 7, 2012 14:55
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Beardless posted:Drilling a hole in the skull is called trepanning, and it was happening for a while before the Romans. Some skulls with holes in them were found in France that dated to 6500 BC. Yeah, the Romans didn't invent it but their technique was a lot more advanced. It wasn't just a hole in the skull, it was a full surgical procedure and implantation of a nonreactive metal plate to replace the missing skull portion. Some Roman surgical tools:   I am not a surgeon but most/all of these should be recognizable to a modern surgeon. Grand Fromage fucked around with this message at 15:22 on Aug 7, 2012 |
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Aug 7, 2012 15:17
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Mika Waltari's The Egyptian is a historical novel of a surgeon living during the time of Akhenaten, around 1350 BC. It was written in 1945 by a man who hadn't even been to Egypt but it describes quite nicely how an ancient skull surgery (before Romans) was conducted and how little chance the patients usually had of surviving long periods. Kaptah is also the best slave there could ever be: steals from his master only so much that he can show off his master's wealth while not harming his master's finances too much. I would recommend Waltari's novels in general because they're very entertaining and at least to me have an authentic feel (something that is probably hard to assess 2000 years later, but...). They're also loaded with symbolism and with the WW2 being just behind the themes of totalitarianism and being under siege by enemy are ever present. Waltari was also a religious man so the phases of Christianity were of interest to him. The Secret of the Kingdom is set immediately after the crucifixion of Christ and The Roman some years later following the spread of Christianity. The Dark Angel describes the siege of Constantinople by the Ottomans, as described by a Latin. The Etruscan follows the life of a man named Turms who travels from Greece to Italy during the Etruscan era. I love all of them but I think Dark Angel is my favourite because of how bitter sweet it is. Read it.
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Aug 7, 2012 16:46
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Grand Fromage posted:Some Roman surgical tools: Well, there's a set of tools to give any person nightmares. As an aside, taking a couple of new subjects in Roman history this semester (my second last semester, alas). One of them explores the idea that the collapse of the rule of law engendered the collapse of the Republic (and also explores public law itself) while the other looks at the urban landscape of Rome and its interaction with the political, religious and cultural life of its inhabitants. I'm just paraphrasing the outlines given but I'm really looking forward to them. Naturally I'm hoping you'll still be on hand to answer any questions I might have come exam time.
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Aug 8, 2012 00:36
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It always amazes me how high quality Roman stuff like those instruments were. Not only do they have the things in the first place, but if I saw one of the pairs of tongs in a doctor's office I wouldn't think twice. It seriously looks like it was made in the last 50 years. I'm assuming this stuff would have been prohibitively expensive though, and 90%+ of the population wouldn't have seen anything of that craftsmanship more than once or so in their lives, right? And I don't know if the collapse of rule of law could really be said to be the death of the Republic. If anything, Augustus instituted probably the most rule of law Rome had ever seen. The Republic was pretty much a constant string of civil wars, competing generals and internal strife. icantfindaname fucked around with this message at 02:21 on Aug 8, 2012 |
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Aug 8, 2012 02:16
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It's a little unclear exactly who had access to the good medical care. Definitely the wealthy, gladiators, and soldiers would've all been worked on with those kinds of tools. It's likely the poor didn't have access to anything but folk remedies but I don't know if there's a definite source for that info, it's just assumed since that's how it always works. It is surprising how high quality their stuff was, but not too surprising it looks the same--not like human anatomy has changed any.
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Aug 8, 2012 02:43
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I just saw an exhibit on Pompeii in Cincinnati and it was pretty awesome. A lot of that stuff looks like it was made yesterday. The thing that struck me is that everything they had was so ornamented. For instance, they had a metal weight used on a scale to measure out grain or whatever, and it was cast in the shape of a head, very skillfully too. They had a gladiator's greaves and they were totally covered in scenes of animals and people and gods. It really must have been something to walk through a Roman city when it was all brand new. Also, based on the exhibit, were the Romans really short compared to us? The last part of the museum had the plaster casts made from the cavities where people were covered in volcanic ash, and most of them seemed pretty short by modern standards, but I couldn't be sure because they also tended to be curled up.
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Aug 8, 2012 05:12
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Not really, no. The average was probably a bit smaller than the US average but it wouldn't have been a big difference.
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Aug 8, 2012 05:18
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Depends on their diet, surely? The nobility and other people that could eat plenty of proteins would probably be little different from us, but those living on basically nothing but bread / grain based diet were probably shorter (and had worse teeth). But I've no idea if everyone in Rome had easy access to proteins, even the poorer strata.
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Aug 8, 2012 23:31
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They ate shitloads of fish.
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Aug 8, 2012 23:37
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The Roman diet was pretty good. There's kind of an abberation that gives us a weird view of the past, people were about our size and ate a fairly healthy diet up through the middle ages, then in the industrial/urbanization era diets changed and malnutrition became a lot more common, and people shrank. Now we've grown back to our normal size, but the most recent memory is that people used to be smaller and we've retroactively applied that to all of history. There probably was some class difference. I live in Korea now which has only become wealthy and food-filled very recently, so I can see it first-hand. The old people who grew up in peasant famine time are tiny, the people of my generation are the same size as your average American. I don't think it would've been that extreme but patricians being on average a bit taller than plebs, I can see that.
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Aug 9, 2012 01:07
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Roman names by late the late empire, someone explain them to me. Gaius Julius Caesar - Would people, by the end of the empire, called him 'Caesar' as a first name, or would his friends call him Gaius and only strangers/respectful/informal references call him 'Caesar'? Wikipedia makes it sound like the cognomen was a nickname and/or family differential. WOuld it be like a guy nowadays named Tom Roberts 'the great' going around and calling himself 'the great' as a first name? I.e. what was the real 'first name' for romans by the late empire, how were the cognomen, praenomen, and nomen used? Thanks GamerL fucked around with this message at 23:34 on Aug 9, 2012 |
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Aug 9, 2012 23:27
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GamerL posted:Roman names by late the late empire, someone explain them to me. A very formal address looked like this: 'M. Tullius Cicero, son of Marcus, greets Cn. Pompeius, son of Cneius, Imperator'. Who knows what names they used around the dinner table... edit: This stuff really only applied to Roman nobility. Slaves usually had one name (e.g. Cicero's secretary Tiro). Your average Roman probably used his first name like a normal person. In graffiti from Pompeii first names are very common (e.g. "Secundus likes to screw boys") but so are cognomina or nomina (e.g. "Cruel Lalagus, why do you not love me?"). edit: It gets superweird when you look at Augustus. He was born 'Gaius Octavius Thurinus'. After he was adopted by Caesar be became 'Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus' (after adoption the nomen usually turned into a cognomen), but he propbably dropped the 'Otavianus'. Later, he started calling himself 'Imperator Julius Caesar'. No more 'Gaius'. And finally, he was 'Imperator Caesar Augustus'. I bet his wife just called him honey. Potzblitz! fucked around with this message at 04:19 on Aug 10, 2012 |
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Aug 10, 2012 03:53
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Morholt posted:Remember that the gospels were mostly written in the 2nd century. They are more likely to reflect the sentiment after the Jewish war, when the civil rights of the jews were greatly limited. The entire Barabbas episode is certainly a fabrication. There was no such prisoner-releasing tradition and Jesus, being charged with conspiracy, would not have had a trial anyway (and neither would the other prophets). Actually, the Gospels were written in the 1st Century A.D. (within ~50 years of when Jesus supposedly died on the cross). First-hand eyewitnesses of Jesus were still around at that time. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gospel#Dating
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Aug 10, 2012 03:58
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Potzblitz! posted:Who knows what names they used around the dinner table... From the Pompeii graffiti, it looks like first names might've been used. Part of the problem is Romans reused the hell out of names and you would've had no idea who the gently caress someone was talking about--this is part of why the names keep getting longer over time, adding more and more parts to distinguish people. I mean go back to the Punic Wars and you have like three different Cornelius Scipios. And women didn't even get their own names.
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Aug 10, 2012 04:07
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Did these Roman names have literal translatable meanings in Latin? Native American names are translated like for instance as "Sitting Bull" and a lot of Germanic names, when broken down, are very similar. In English we don't realize that a name like Karl (or Carl, or Charles) literally meant "free man" in old Germanic societies. Kind of odd to think of someone being named "Karl Karlsson" would be "Free-man, son of Free-man". Is Latin naming similar?
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Aug 10, 2012 08:50
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Some do. Cognomen generally mean something: Caesar is hairy, Cicero is chickpea. Names like Secundus or Sextus are numerical--second, sixth. The agnomen are all obviously translatable, these are things like Germanicus or Felix. The praenomen probably had meanings but a lot of them are lost. Marcus is speculated to be derived from Mars, for example. Those are the hardest to track down reliable histories for though.
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Aug 10, 2012 09:31
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Anti-Hero posted:Did these Roman names have literal translatable meanings in Latin? Native American names are translated like for instance as "Sitting Bull" and a lot of Germanic names, when broken down, are very similar. In English we don't realize that a name like Karl (or Carl, or Charles) literally meant "free man" in old Germanic societies. Kind of odd to think of someone being named "Karl Karlsson" would be "Free-man, son of Free-man". Is Latin naming similar? And yet every now and then you run into people with names like Freeman. Maybe their names are very old translations from Scandinavian languages or whatever into English, while others for whatever reason remained untranslated.
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Aug 10, 2012 10:29
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It's the same with stuff like "Smith" and "Taylor" really, people aren't very imaginative with naming things. (Which makes movies/books/popular culture where native american names are used or represented mockingly for their "primitiveness" all the weirder) Pimpmust fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Aug 10, 2012 |
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Aug 10, 2012 12:42
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Pimpmust posted:It's the same with stuff like "Smith" and "Taylor" really, people aren't very imaginative with naming things. Here it is pretty common to have people with the last name "keizer" which translates directly to 'emperor'. I believe the theory is that these were the village clowns, for when Napoleon demanded a formalized naming system with registered last names for the people these were the guys that came up to the office and went "well, I'm the emperor!" e. Also 'keizer' is obviously a bastardization of 'kaiser' coming from Caesar. Rome still lives.
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Aug 10, 2012 12:47
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And Kaiser = Hairy. Which incidently makes "Max Kaiser" the best name. Now the silliest thing about names are things like government lists of approved names, divided by gender - run by some form of staffed board. Can't have things gettin' too crazy n confusin' out there! Someone might get a stroke.
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Aug 10, 2012 12:54
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The justification for such boards and lists are that parents should not be allowed to give children names that will be a significant burden for them later on, not to defend delicate sensibilities. Also, to protect the names of noble families of course
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Aug 10, 2012 13:22
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Grand Fromage posted:Some do. Cognomen generally mean something: Caesar is hairy, Cicero is chickpea. it has been mentioned before, but many cognomen were jokes, Ceasar was balding at a very young age, hence the name. It's pretty funny that the kaisers and the czars were all named after a guy with a George Costanza hairstyle.
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Aug 10, 2012 14:07
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According to Wikipedia, it's not certain what the origin of Caesar's cognomen was - Pliny saying it was due to an ancestor being born by caesarian section, and the Historia Augusta (which is notoriously full of lies and jokes) suggesting variously because of someone's hair, eye color, or even having killed an elephant in battle. What is certain, as far as I can tell, is that it didn't have anything to do with the JC we all know, because his father, uncle and probably plenty of other relatives also shared the Caesar cognomen.
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Aug 10, 2012 15:55
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