Introduction

Late Antique Taxonomies in Medicine and Healing

Bibliographic Data

ID21819364
AuthorsNils H Korsvoll (University of Agder), Ágnes Mihálykó (0000-0001-5430-0090, Austrian Academy of Sciences), Ágnes T Mihálykó (Austrian Academy of Sciences and Saint Athanasius Greek Catholic Theological Institute Institute for Medieval Research (at the Austrian Academy of Sciences) Budapest Hungary)
Year2025
Volume17
Issue1
Pages1-9
Publication date2025-07-10
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueTrends in Classics (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1866-7473 • E-ISSN: 1866-7481
PublisherWalter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE)
DOI10.1515/tc-2025-0001
OpenAlexW4412408259
LanguageEN
References cited17

This introduction sets out the basic premises for the special issue on diagnosis and taxonomy in late antique healing. Drawing on recent insights from history of medicine, we consider health and healing as broader, sociocultural phenomena and argue that to understand late antique healing practices we must understand late antiquity. Throughout the issue we see that medical taxonomies and diagnostics rely not only on (ancient) biology, but also include cosmology, mythology and sociocultural traditions. These come together in three overarching principles: causality, categorisation, and discourse, which run through the different articles and the different material they present. We offer some preliminary observations here to the seven articles that follow

Aesthetics · Antique · Archaeology · Art · Epistemology · Mythology · Sociocultural evolution · Sociology · Anthropology · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Classics · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · History of Medicine Studies · Philosophy

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access