In The Grip Of Disease Studies in the Greek Imagination

Using texts from ancient medicine, epic, lyric, tragedy, historiography, philosophy, and religion, this book explores the influence of Greek ideas on health and disease on Greek thought. Fundamental issues such as causation and responsibility, purification and pollution, mind-body relations and gender differences are deeply implicated.



This original and lively book explores Greek ideas about health and disease and their influence on Greek thought. Fundamental issues such as causation and responsibility, purification and pollution, mind-body relations and gender differences, authority and the expert and who can challenge them, reality and appearances, good government, happiness, and good and evil themselves are deeply implicated. Using the evidence not just from Greek medical theory and practice but also from epic, lyric, tragedy, historiography, philosophy, and religion, G. E. R. Lloyd offers the first comprehensive account of the influence of Greek thought about health and disease on the Greek imagination.