Breastfeeding is a key issue found in ancient sources that resonates with public debates today, affecting women in different parts of the world and of all social classes. The aim of this research was to identify breastfeeding narratives in ancient medical and philosophical texts from the 1st to the 6th century CE that address ethical issues in the medical management and social perception of new mothers. We examined 15 literary sources and one funerary inscription on lactation and critically evaluated the ancient idea of the perfect breastfeeding mother versus the non-breastfeeding mother. We then discussed our historical data in terms of objectivity and significance in relation to contemporary attitudes towards motherhood and lactation, e.g., (1) the cult of the perfect, breastfeeding mother in contemporary lactation education and (2) the onset of conditions which may affect normal breastfeeding, such as dysphoric milk ejection reflex (D-MER), breastfeeding aversion response (BAR) or post-partum depression. The analysis of the results showed that in both ancient and contemporary postnatal health care: (1) good mothering is associated with breastfeeding and (2) alternative feeding methods are acknowledged, but never as the best, natural option. Finally, our analysis shows that public health policies on breastfeeding and mothers\' own knowledge of their bodies are contested between nursing theories, social expectations and economic factors.

Pyrrhus of Epirus, widely respected and feared by his contemporaries, was a legendary figure in the ancient world. In this paper, we investigate Plutarch\'s description of the king\'s unique dental pathology. There are several possibilities to explain the ancient king\'s presentation, including several different types of developmental dysplasia. However, our conclusion is that it was likely due to a significant dental calculus overgrowth, often seen in the ancient Greek diet of the time. Whatever the underlying cause, Pyrrhus\' intimidating visage helped secure the king a legacy that lasts to this day.

Ancient Greek and Latin medical authors considered a flight into solitude a compelling sign of mental disturbance, frequently described as misanthropia, a word fraught with meaning beyond the medical discourse. The fictionalised character Timon of Athens, the quintessential misanthrope, can shed light on ancient cultural concepts of self-imposed isolation from human contact. To cope with the sense of unease this deviant behaviour induced, misanthropia was explained as \'madness\', ridiculed in various genres of humour, morally condemned in philosophy, and ultimately demonized in Christian cosmology. These various attempts at containment echo in the medical works of the age, making it impossible to comprehend the concept of misanthropia in ancient medicine without taking full account of the cultural context.

A votive offering or ex-voto includes a variety of usually non-professional artworks offered to divinities and placed in religious sites to fulfill a vow or in gratitude for recovery from an illness or injury. Unfortunately, the ancient period lacks a scientifically verifiable understanding of the true nature of cancer and its natural history and, consequently, a lack of effective treatment. This paper discusses two ex-votos potentially related to breast cancer distant more than 2000 years, one from the other. The ex-votos convey the complex relationship of humans with illness through an art expression stemming from the heart and minds of ordinary people.

The last century brought about more rapid new developments in the treatment of burns, which significantly lowered the mortality of burn injuries. However, burns were already treated in antiquity, where the threshold from spirituality to scientific medicine originated. The existing literature on burn treatment is very limited and there are many cross-references, some of them incorrect. The aim of this work by an interdisciplinary team of historians and physicians is to offer a more precise reproduction of the burn treatment of Greek and Roman antiquity using original texts in context and with a modern scientific background. There are many sources from ancient doctors on the subject of burn treatment, as well as the treatment of burned-out wounds and frostbite, which have not yet been mentioned. The literature research also showed an understanding of scientific contexts in ancient medicine, such as antiseptics or rheology. Interestingly, there was a change in burn medicine from everyday Greek medicine to Roman military medicine with other burn patterns. The care of patients using analgetics and the therapy of burn shock arose from the literature. The ancient world is considered to be the foundation of medicine, but it is believed to have been based mainly on shamanism rather than science. However, already more than two millennia ago, burns were correctly assessed and treated according to today\'s scientific standards and scientific relationships were recognized.

BACKGROUND: In Roman medicine, face packs, plasters, unguents, and peelings were part of the therapy of dermatological diseases, but also served cosmetic purposes. Ancient medical textbooks inform us about the ingredients for these applications. Beyond medical literature, other genres contain information about dermatological applications. The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17 AD) wrote a didactic poem recording five recipes for topical applications for female faces (Medicamina faciei femineae). Researchers debate the relation of Ovid\'s poem to Roman medicine: Does the poem contain therapeutical or cosmetical information, or is it mere belles lettres?
OBJECTIVE: The objective of the paper is to conduct a medico-historical classification of Ovid\'s poem by determining whether the ingredients of Ovid\'s recipes were thought to be effective by the authors of Roman medical textbooks.
METHODS: First, translation and identification of the ingredients were carried out. Second, comparison of the ingredients\' functions regarding the therapy of dermatological diseases in two important Roman medical textbooks was realized. For this purpose, several commentaries on the text of Ovid were used and a keyword search in Roman medical textbooks was performed.
RESULTS: Ovid\'s five recipes contain 23 ingredients. All ingredients can be found in medical textbooks. We find that 14 of these ingredients serve cosmetic purposes, 17 serve the therapy of dermatological diseases, and 13 serve both.
CONCLUSIONS: Ovid\'s recipes contain drugs that were considered effective by the authors of Roman medical textbooks. These drugs were recommended both for therapeutic and cosmetic purposes by the same authors. Therefore, Ovid\'s didactic poem is not mere belles lettres, but contains serious medical and cosmetical information. As far as we know, it is the first Roman text that contains dermatological recipes.

One of the most distinctive aspects of contemporary psychiatry is its firm grounding in a neurological and biochemical framework for the interpretation of mental life and its disturbances. In the absence of any strong neurological understanding or systematic knowledge of active pharmaceutical substances, one might expect that early ancient medicine readily resorted to non-somatic approaches to healing mental suffering. Instead, what is usually labelled \"therapy of the word\" and other forms of what one may call psychotherapy emerge relatively late in Greek medicine, only in the first centuries of our era. This paper provides an overview and analysis of this development in ancient history of psychology, philosophy and medicine, covering a broad period of time from the fifth century BCE to the end of the late-antique period, the fifth century CE. The focus is on the very idea (or lack thereof) of the curability of mental disturbance, and on the particular branch of therapeutics which addresses the psychological and existential condition of the patient, rather than his or her physiological state.

This article explores how the ancient philosophers from Plato to late antiquity understood mental illness. It outlines when, how and in what kind of contexts the phenomenon of mental illness was recognized in the ancient philosophical texts, how mental illness was understood in terms of the body-mind interaction, and how mental disorders of the medical kind were distinguished from non-medical psychic disturbances. It establishes that, while the philosophers mostly understood mental illness along the lines of ancient medical thinking, their ideas, for example on the nature and location of the soul, informed their theories of mental illness.

This book on ancient medicine offers a unique resource for historians of medicine, historians of psychology, and classicists - and also cultural historians and historians of art. The Hippocratic texts and other contemporary medical sources have often been overlooked when it comes to their approaches to psychology, which are considered more mechanical and less elaborated than contemporary poetic and philosophical representations, but also than later medical works, notably Galenic. This book aims to do justice to early medical accounts by illustrating their richness and sophistication, their links with contemporary cultural products, and the indebtedness of later medicine to their observations. The ancient sources are read not only as archaeological documents, but also in the light of methodological discussions that are fundamental in the history of psychiatry and the history of psychology.

Even though the earliest prosthetic devices date to the Ancient Egyptian Empire and iconographic sources attest their use in the Greco-Roman world, archaeological evidence for this practice prior to 2nd millennium AD is very scant. In 2013, a skeleton dating to the Frankish period (6th century AD) was excavated at the Hemmaberg in southern Austria. The middle adult male was missing his left foot from above the ankle. In its place, an iron-ring and wooden remains were recovered and interpreted as a prosthesis replacing the lost foot. This represents one of the oldest examples of prosthetic limb replacement associated with the skeleton of its wearer in Europe to date. Analysis through macroscopic assessment, radiography and CT-scanning revealed healing of the lesion even though it may have initially been complicated by osteomyelitis. Atrophy of the left lower leg further indicates immobilisation and suggests survival of several years. Osteoarthritis in the knees and shoulder girdle provides tentative indications towards the functionality of the prosthesis, perhaps aided through a crutch. These findings are set against the historic, archaeological, bioarchaeological and social context of the man in order to discuss whether removal of the foot was due to medical, punitive or traumatic causes.