A History Of The Mind And Mental Health In Classical Greek Medical Thought

Download or read book A History of the Mind and Mental Health in Classical Greek Medical Thought written by Chiara Thumiger and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-09 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Hippocratic texts and other contemporary medical sources have often been overlooked in discussions of ancient psychology. They have been considered to be more mechanical and less detailed than poetic and philosophical representations, as well as later medical texts such as those of Galen. This book does justice to these early medical accounts by demonstrating their richness and sophistication, their many connections with other contemporary cultural products and the indebtedness of later medicine to their observations. In addition, it reads these sources not only as archaeological documents but also in the light of methodological discussions that are fundamental to the histories of psychiatry and psychology. As a result of this approach, the book will be important for scholars of these disciplines as well as those of Greek literature and philosophy, strongly advocating the relevance of ancient ideas to modern debates.