From theurgical to secular medicine in ancient Greece: pínakes and sanationes
Angeletti, L.R.; Galen; Hippocrates
Forum 1(4): 13-21
1991
ISSN/ISBN: 1121-8142 PMID: 11640014 Document Number: 377636
Although rational secular medicine, i.e. medicine founded on clinical observation and on the exploration of the natural causes of diseases, prevailed in Greece as late as the IV century B.C., testimonies of theurgical medicine survive in temples dedicated to the gods of medicine, e.g. Maleatas, Amphiaros and Asklepios. Votive inscriptions (Latin sanationes) show clinical cases, solved with the aid of the physician-god, who acts during the dream, which is an essential component in classical medicine and art of the medical treatment. It is worth noting that sanationes have been found in temples of many healing cities, e.g. Epidauros and Lebena and in Tiberine Island in Rome, but not in Kos and Pergamon, where Hippocrates and Galen were active, respectively. Is it just fortuitousness or testimony of the prevailing "scientific" meaning due to the work of the two most representative physicians of the classical world?