Dr. Ralph Rosen will present his talk "Human and Divine in Hippocratic Medicine" on February 18, 2025 at the Law Complex room 135.

Talk Abstract: “One of the most significant contributions of the ancient Greek medical writers was to offer advice on nutrition and lifestyle that helps humans control their health, and in turn their sense of happiness and well-being. At the same time, they were working within a culture in which (even as today), parallel systems of belief claimed that ‘health’ was controlled by outside forces—a god or gods, fate—which downplayed the idea that humans could themselves control their own health. While the Greeks didn’t ‘discover’ the idea of a 'healthy lifestyle’, they wrote about it for the first time. I will discuss various Greek medical texts that address the tensions between human and divine agency in matters of private and public health.”