|
Third Murderer posted:I have no doubt that you could get people to submit to bleedings to balance their humours even today, if you marketed the idea well enough. There's a bunch of people into cupping in Finland still nowadays: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cupping_therapy
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 16:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 19:42 |
|
|
What were some Ancient Greek or Roman medical practices?
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 17:14
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What were some Ancient Greek or Roman medical practices? Sacrifice a chicken to the God of healing a day, keeps the leeches away!
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 17:51
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What were some Ancient Greek or Roman medical practices? We talked about it a few pages ago. They were really into accurate prognosis.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 18:05
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What were some Ancient Greek or Roman medical practices? Really, best you could do without germ theory or antibiotics. Try to keep stuff clean, cut off gangrene limbs, etc. Romans and Greeks had at least a pretty rough understanding of anatomy, if I remember, though not so much on actual mechanics or interactions between systems. Microbiology would be out of the question, for instance. I think from a practical stand point Roman surgery was pretty sophisticated due to having a large pool of battlefield surgeons coming out of the army. And barring that there'd be typical trial and error herbal remedies. I remember reading that Romans had some catch all medicinal plant they harvested to extinction because it was so useful, meaning we don't really know IF it was useful. Then less reliable bizarre remedies. Then when all else fails I guess prayer?
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 18:18
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What were some Ancient Greek or Roman medical practices? For diagnosing a patient, the methods detailed by Celsus usually involve inspecting the patient's vomit, urine or poo poo for clues. Treatments for fever involved starvation, purgatives, rubbing salt and oil on the patient and giving them days of bed rest in a room well-ventilated with "pure air". For a headache, apply a mix of rose oil and vinegar to the patient's head, then wrap their head in linen strips. If that doesn't work, the patient can also snort thyme or dill weed. To deal with shivers induced by fever, the patient can be given tepid water with salt in it, then induced to vomit. If that doesn't help, the next line of treatment is garlic and hot pepper. If a fever patient becomes delirious, it's wise to shave their head and douse it with a solution of water which has been boiled with herbs in it, then rub rose oil on the patient's head. If delirium turns to melancholy, playing the cymbals is known to fight off gloominess. If all else fails, induce sleep with opium. To treat a patient tormented by phantoms, give them a treatment based on white hellebore. To treat a patient who's completely fallen into madness, starve them, lock them in fetters, and beat them, then give them a regimen of exercise that will bring them to the point of exhaustion. Repeat until the patient is sane. There's a bunch of more specific diseases in Celsus' book, but most of them are too technical for me to determine what we'd call the disease today. A lot of the treatments boil down to some combination of things like those above - diet, bloodletting, purgatives, rubbing oil on patients, giving them particular plants or potions, torture, and so on.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 18:19
|
|
|
I find it fascinating that a modern doctor can instantly identify ancient medical tools. Different materials, of course, but the basic shapes have persisted over time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 19:28
|
|
|
Well, in Rome for the first time ever. This is going to be amazing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 20:03
|
|
|
Tao Jones posted:For diagnosing a patient, the methods detailed by Celsus usually involve inspecting the patient's vomit, urine or poo poo for clues. Sounds like they learned from trial and error, but were attempting treatments for the possible causes of the symptoms they observe. Some of those therapies could work for a subset of the fever causes, but don't generalize to a fever cure.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 20:30
|
|
|
Octy posted:Well, in Rome for the first time ever. This is going to be amazing. Have fun. It's really one of the best places I have ever visited. Edit: yes \/\/\/\/ Armacham fucked around with this message at 04:21 on Dec 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 20:36
|
|
|
Octy posted:Well, in Rome for the first time ever. This is going to be amazing. When in Rome eat gelato every day. I did and I have no regrets.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 20:59
|
|
|
SlothfulCobra posted:What were some Ancient Greek or Roman medical practices? Wound care in Rome was as good as it got until germ theory. Gladiators recieved excellent medical care, and their bodies have often shown evidence of recovering from a whole bunch of nasty injuries, like cuts that went down the bone and such. Roman surgeons could patch you up pretty good without having to just chop your arms or legs off. So for anything not disease related, the medical practices were similar too what we have now, though obviously less refined and lacking in the stuff modern materials and tech has allowed.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 22:04
|
|
|
It always staggers me that the Seleucids lasted as long as they did as an alien dynasty covering an absurd landmass. The diadochi lasting as long as they did is the most bizarre element of the Hellenistic Age to me...the Ptolemies and Seleucids both (and even the Greco-Bactrians!) maintaining these Hellenistic states way outside of Greece's traditional cultural range in societies like Egypt and Persia which had long-standing traditions of their own.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 22:24
|
|
|
Keep in mind that much of the area in question had already been under alien (primarily Persian) rulers for quite some time before Alexander, so it probably didn't make that great of a difference to the local inhabitants. I got the impression that the seleucids mostly kept the Achmeneid imperial structure intact, complete with satrapies.
|
|
#
?
Dec 5, 2013 23:51
|
|
|
Is having a foreign overlord such a strike against though? It doesn't seem like so huge a difference to the common folk, so as long as you can root out the nobility and warrior class's resentment or ability to act on it, one overlord is much the same as another. Cultural differences can be assimilated or just allowed to pass without comment.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 00:25
|
|
|
The support of powerful newcomers can also be a great tool for attacking local rivals, which is pretty damned important to the local elite.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 00:35
|
|
Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
|
veekie posted:Is having a foreign overlord such a strike against though? It doesn't seem like so huge a difference to the common folk, so as long as you can root out the nobility and warrior class's resentment or ability to act on it, one overlord is much the same as another. Cultural differences can be assimilated or just allowed to pass without comment. For the most part this is true in the world before nationalism is a thing. The average person's contact with the upper levels of government is basically when the tax man rolls into town, or when the army recruiter rolls into town (or if the hey you can't have your religion anymore guy rolls in). As long as taxes remain acceptable, the army doesn't start taking every man in the village, and your gods are left alone, it's very rare for people to give a poo poo who is in charge. It makes sense in a world without nationalism, what do you, Mr. Dirt Farmer, care if your taxes are going to a Greek king or a Persian king? As long as they aren't cranked up to being a huge burden, it doesn't matter in your life. Often the easiest way to maintain this was just to leave the lower level government structure intact, but reporting to the new boss. This is what the Romans did more or less (depended on the region), and Alexander, and some of the other empires of the Near East.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 00:37
|
|
|
I asked this question a while ago, but it got lost in the flow of the thread... What aspects, if any, of Roman republicanism did medieval Rome retain? Was citizenship still a thing?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 00:48
|
|
|
BurningStone posted:Different materials, of course, Those different materials though are terrifying. Can you imagine cataract surgery in ancient Rome(apparently they had it down pretty well) or getting a catheter placed, i.e. a lead pipe.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 01:41
|
|
|
Grand Fromage posted:Sure (though he meant the westernized parts of Asia I think) This is correct. I'm in Taiwan, so there's a lot of American influence here, but cupping and acupuncture are still very common. Children here are not supposed to drink cold water because it's considered dangerous. There are two distinct medical traditions that coexist. People will go to a "western" medical doctor on some days and to the Chinese doctor on others. I got in a bit of trouble a couple of years back because I made a crack about snorting rhino horn with my students and it turned out one of their dads was a very successful "Chinese pharmacist" and he took offense to the idea of using rhino horn since only barbaric Mainlanders did that and everyone in civilized Taiwan knew that particular remedy didn't work. But it was in Korea that a doctor told me I needed to be ejaculating at least once a day and it didn't matter if it was with my girlfriend or not.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 06:17
|
|
|
Of course we've still got some work to do. A lot of western med rests on the faith that a study done by any other researcher is repeatable, but people aren't doing repeat studies soooo... basically 'some lab in Bergen says that this pill...' is better than 'this old guy in Nanjing said...' but much more in a matter of degree than paradigm shift, unfortunately. e: That second link is kinda scary, because the pharma companies are tossing out the academic journal papers for not being repeatable. That is not the direction in which I'd like my fact checking to flow. the JJ fucked around with this message at 06:41 on Dec 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 06:39
|
|
|
Third Murderer posted:To be fair, as Atlas Hugged noted, that stuff happens in the West too. The idea that being cold or going out on a rainy day can get you sick is still very common, and let's not get started with all the crazy ideas people have about "alternative" healing methods like homeopathy or whatever. That's easy, just point out that blood donors live longer and healthier, nevermind that at-risk groups aren't allowed to give blood and this slants the numbers. And it stands to reason that the easiest way to cure hypertension is to get rid of some of the stuff, right? So, anyone care discuss dem Dorians?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 06:44
|
|
|
Something else to think about on ancient medicine. A lot of the time the body can fight off whatever the illness was eventually if you can keep the patient from doing more damage to himself, mixed with the placebo effect, I expect there's probably a huge range of cases where the physician tried some new cure and it worked because the patient wasn't that badly off to begin with.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 06:51
|
|
|
So some rear end in a top hat a few thousand years ago had a cold, ate a tiger, and felt better and now we've almost hunted the poor bastards to extinction. Humans are amazing.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 07:03
|
|
|
Only barely related, but I'm doing a summary on a book about the history of dancing. You know, across the prehistoric period, the classical age and the tribes of negros, red-skins and eskimos. Also, how dancing only became a religious activity when the cultured people (Indians, Egyptians and Greeks) started dancing. Nevermind the author disregards prehistoric ritualistic dance, due to being just "silly beliefs about invisible beings affecting the material world". I tried googling for this author online, but there's no biography whatsoever. Just  . It's in the book though; she's a Spanish teacher that got her degree in the '50s. Alongside a note that says most of the reference material from where the authority quotes came from has been lost, so the bibliography has been inevitably left incomplete.There's no  big enough.For actual content: what's the last recorded use of chariots in combat? Azran fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Dec 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 08:06
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:So some rear end in a top hat a few thousand years ago had a cold, ate a tiger, and felt better and now we've almost hunted the poor bastards to extinction. Humans are amazing. It gets even more amazing when impotence cures, aphrodisiacs and performance boosters are concerned. It seems just about everything can be one.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 09:09
|
|
|
Atlas Hugged posted:But it was in Korea that a doctor told me I needed to be ejaculating at least once a day and it didn't matter if it was with my girlfriend or not. Talk about doctor's orders. Azran posted:For actual content: what's the last recorded use of chariots in combat? World war 1 Frostwerks fucked around with this message at 12:55 on Dec 6, 2013 |
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 12:51
|
|
|
Berke Negri posted:And barring that there'd be typical trial and error herbal remedies. I remember reading that Romans had some catch all medicinal plant they harvested to extinction because it was so useful, meaning we don't really know IF it was useful. That would be silphium, which was notably used, per Wikipedia, for "cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies."
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 16:51
|
|
|
ALL-PRO SEXMAN posted:That would be silphium, which was notably used, per Wikipedia, for "cough, sore throat, fever, indigestion, aches and pains, warts, and all kinds of maladies." You skipped the best part -- that silphium may have been a "morning after pill" in much the same way that its relative, wild carrot/Queen Anne's Lace has been used as an abortifacient all over the world. Makes silphium potentially MUCH more valuable.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 17:06
|
|
|
The thing that's always confused me is how do you farm something to extinction?
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 20:55
|
|
|
ThatBasqueGuy posted:The thing that's always confused me is how do you farm something to extinction? He said "harvested", so they probably didn't domesticate and cultivate it and just harvested a fuckton of naturally growing plants.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 21:00
|
|
|
Silphium couldn't be cultivated, and the Romans grabbed up so much that it went exinct. You can kill crops by overharvesting, lack of crop rotation, or letting grazing animals destroy them.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 21:17
|
|
|
It could be locally plentiful, so nobody ever thought of cultivating it, but then it's value shot up, so it was harvested at a rate greater than it's natural growth rate. As supplies dropped, value goes up and harvesting intensifies before it's all gone.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 21:19
|
|
|
Silphium would be a "dream find." It wasn't ever locally-plentiful, unless you were in Cyrene. But since it was so widely-exported, maybe someday somebody will turn up a labeled jar of seeds or its resin.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 21:25
|
|
|
homullus posted:Silphium would be a "dream find." It wasn't ever locally-plentiful, unless you were in Cyrene. But since it was so widely-exported, maybe someday somebody will turn up a labeled jar of seeds or its resin. Check the via cloaca, some of it must have ended up there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 21:31
|
|
|
sullat posted:Check the via cloaca, some of it must have ended up there. The problem with things that are biodegradable is that they're biodegradable.
|
|
#
?
Dec 6, 2013 21:57
|
|
|
ThatBasqueGuy posted:The thing that's always confused me is how do you farm something to extinction? AFAIK there were repeated attempts to cultivate Silphium, but the plant really only thrived in the Cyrene region. And since demand and thus prices were so high, it was just too drat lucrative not to annihilate. The romans had little to no concept of protecting endangered species.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 16:00
|
|
|
Also if I remember right Romans were just terrible farmers.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 17:59
|
|
|
They had the most efficient farms before industrialization.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 18:05
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 3, 2024 19:42 |
|
|
Paxicon posted:AFAIK there were repeated attempts to cultivate Silphium, but the plant really only thrived in the Cyrene region. And since demand and thus prices were so high, it was just too drat lucrative not to annihilate. The romans had little to no concept of protecting endangered species. I don't think people in general even had a concept of endangered species until relatively recently.
|
|
#
?
Dec 7, 2013 18:15
|
|