Diseases in the Ancient Greek World

What were the illnesses that plagued men women and children of the ancient world? Traditional approaches to this subject have often relied exclusively on literary evidence but ancient texts are extraordinarily difficult to interpret. Different methodologies archaic defitions of diseases and technical terms whose meanings have shifted over time frustrate discovery of the actual diseases hidden behind textual sources.To uncover this nosological reality Mirko D. Grmek has fashioned a vast army of techniques into a new multidisciplinary approach that combines philology paleopathology paleodemography and iconography with recent developments in genetics immunology epidemiology and clinical medicine. Also new is Grmek''s concept of pathocoenosis (the ensemble of pathological states present in a given population) and his method of examining such ancient diseases as leprocy tuberculosis and syphilis in relation to one another and to all other pathological conditions rather than in isolation.