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Abbreviations
Oxford Handbooks Online

Abbreviations
Oxford Handbook of Science and Medicine in the Classical World
Edited by Paul T. Keyser and John Scarborough
Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Classical Studies

Online Publication Date: Jul 2018
(p. xi) Abbreviations
DK Diels, H., and W. Kranz. Die fragmente der Vorsokratiker. 6th ed. 2 vols.
Zürich and Berlin, 1951. Cited by section and fragment number.
EANS Keyser, Paul T., and Georgia L. Irby-Massie, eds. Encyclopedia of Ancient
Natural Scientists. London, New York, 2008.
FGrHist Jacoby, F, ed. Fragmente der griechischen Historiker. Leiden, 1923–. Cited
by number, not volume and page.
Kühn Kühn, Karl Gottlob. Claudii Galeni Opera omnia, 20 vols. Leipzig 1821–
1833; repr. Hildesheim 1964–1965 and 1986; cited by volume.page.
OLD Glare, P. G. W., ed. Oxford Latin Dictionary. 2nd ed. 2 vols. Oxford, New
York: Clarendon Press, 2012.
RE Wissowa, G. et al., eds. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen

Altertumswissenschaft. 85 vols. Including 15 supplements. Stuttgart,
1893–1978.
SAM Scarborough, John et al., eds. Studies in Ancient Medicine. Vol. 1. Leiden,
1990—.
Page 1 of 2
PRINTED FROM OXFORD HANDBOOKS ONLINE (www.oxfordhandbooks.com). © Oxford University Press, 2018. All Rights
Reserved. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a title in
Oxford Handbooks Online for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).
Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Abbreviations
SIG Dittenberger, W., and F. H. von Gaertringen, eds. Sylloge Inscriptionum

Graecarum. 3rd ed. 4 vols. Leipzig, 1915–1924. Reprint Hildesheim, 1960.
(p. xii)
Page 2 of 2

Contributors

Contributors
Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Classical Studies

Online Publication Date: Jul 2018
(p. xiii) Contributors
Fabio Acerbi, CNRS, UMR8167 “Orient et Méditerranée,” Paris, France
Jochen Althoff, Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, Arbeitsbereich Klassische

Philologie/Gräzistik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, Germany
Mary Beagon, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of

Manchester, Manchester, England
Alain Bernard, Centre A. Koyré, Paris Est Créteil University, France
Lawrence J. Bliquez, Classics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA
Alan C. Bowen, Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science,

Baysville, ON, Canada
Page 1 of 6

Contributors
Lauren Caldwell, Departments of History and Classics, Trinity College, Hartford,

CT, USA
Louise Cilliers, Department of English and Classical Languages, University of the

Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa
Glen M. Cooper, Independent Scholar, Springville, UT, USA
Elizabeth Craik, School of Classics, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews,

Scotland, UK
Rosalie David, Centre for Biomedical and Forensic Studies in Egyptology,

University of Manchester, Manchester, England
James Evans, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, USA
Kyle Fraser, University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
Klaus Geus, Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Historische

Geographie des antiken Mittelmeerraumes, Berlin, Germany
Pam Gordon, Department of Classics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA
Page 2 of 6

Contributors
Mark Grant, Independent Scholar, Bruton, UK
Andrew Gregory, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University

College, London, England
Michael Griffin, Departments of Philosophy and Classical, Near Eastern,

(p. xiv)
and Religious Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Stefan Hagel, Institute for the Study of Ancient Culture, Austrian Academy of
Sciences, Vienna, Austria
Jens Høyrup, Section for Philosophy and Science Studies, Roskilde University,
Roskilde, Denmark
Annette Imhausen, Historisches Seminar und Exzellenzcluster Normative Orders,

Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Ian Johnston, Independent Scholar, Tasmania, Australia
Philip G. Kaplan, Department of History, University of North Florida, Jacksonville,

FL, USA
Paul T. Keyser, Independent Scholar, Chicago, New York, and Pittsburgh, USA
Page 3 of 6

Contributors
Colin Guthrie King, Department of Philosophy, Providence College, Providence, RI,

USA
Toke Lindegaard Knudsen, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies,

University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Andreas Kuelzer, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Medieval Research,

Division of Byzantine Research, Vienna, Austria
Mariska Leunissen, Department of Philosophy, The University of North Carolina at

Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
David Paniagua, Dpto. Filología Clásica e Indoeuropeo, Universidad de Salamanca,

Salamanca, Spain
Joachim Friedrich Quack, Ägyptologisches Institut, Heidelberg, Germany
Tracey Rihll, Department of History and Classics, Swansea University, Wales, UK
Francesca Rochberg, Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley,

USA
Duane W. Roller, Professor Emeritus of Classics, the Ohio State University, USA
Page 4 of 6

Contributors
John Scarborough, Professor Emeritus, Department of History and School of

Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
JoAnn Scurlock, Professor Emerita of History, Elmhurst College, Chicago, IL, USA
Lucas Siorvanes, Department of Greek and Latin, University College, London,

England
Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, Department of Classics, Florida State University,

Tallahassee, USA
Fabio Stok, Dipartimento di Studi letterari e filosofici, Università di Roma Tor

Vergata, Rome, Italy
(p. xv) Philip Thibodeau, Department of Classics, Brooklyn College, Brooklyn, NY,
USA
Teun Tieleman, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht

University, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Cristina Viano, Centre Léon Robin, CNRS, Université de Paris IV - Sorbonne, Paris,
France
Alexei Volkov, Center for General Education, National Tsing-Hua University,

Hsinchu, Taiwan
Page 5 of 6

Contributors
Colin Webster, Classics Program, University of California, Davis, CA, USA
Xu Fengxian, Institute for the History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of

Sciences, Beijing, China
Tsutomu Yamashita, Department of Business Administration, Kyoto Gakuen

University, Kyoto, Japan
Leonid Zhmud, Institute for the History of Science, St. Petersburg, Russia
(p. xvi)
Page 6 of 6

Introduction

Introduction
Paul T. Keyser
Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Classical Studies, Ancient Science and Medicine
Online Publication Date: Jul 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199734146.013.81
Abstract and Keywords
There was science in antiquity. Science requires only that: the world we observe exists
and is knowable; moreover, we can share knowledge about the world; and finally, there is
a way that the world is, and it is both meaningful and possible to say that some models of
the world, or reports about the world, better represent that way than do others. It is no
more anachronistic to employ our term “science” than other modern terms (“book,”
“city,” “food,” “school”) for a corresponding ancient category or practice. This volume
includes what was validly science for ancient practitioners and theorists: attempts to
understand how the natural world worked and to construct models to convey those
understandings. Those who accept as scientific a geocentric cosmos populated by living
beings constituted of humors must likewise accept stellar influences and material
transmutation. This volume humbly takes the ancient ideas for what they are and studies
them as a system that changed and grew over time.
Keywords: alchemy, Aristotle, astrology, astronomy, canon, Epicurus, mathematics, models, Plato, science
WHAT goes first comes last: only a Stoic Sage or a Daoist Master could write an
introduction to a work before the work was completed. We, the two editors, are far short
of such ascended masters, so only now do we look back and see what we have done.
You have before you a collection of essays on ancient sciences intended to provide a
synoptic synthesis of how scholars currently understand those sciences. Our focus is the
classical world, that is, Greco-Roman antiquity, up to ca 650 CE. But that set of
descriptive terms raises a host of problematic queries, at least a few of which must be
confronted: What is “science”? How, or using what categories, shall we study it? What
role do the essays on Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China play in this book?
Page 1 of 8

Introduction
We are in agreement that there is such a thing as science and, indeed, that there was
such a thing in Greco-Roman antiquity (Keyser 2013). That is, we take it as given that (a)
the world we observe does exist and can be known; moreover, (b) we can share
knowledge about the world; and finally, (c) there is a way that the world is, and it is both
meaningful and even possible to say that some models of the world, or reports about the
world, better represent that way than do others. Two illuminating examples from Greco-
Roman antiquity are (1) the observation that opium-poppy sap and willow-bark infusion
each genuinely alleviate pain; and (2) the spherical-earth theory, namely that the earth is
not a flattish expanse on whose “top” we live, but rather a globular mass, on whose
outside we live.
In using the modern word “science,” we are naturally aware that we are using a modern
word: we are after all, writing in English, not in Greek or Latin, much less in Egyptian or
Sanskrit, among others. That, of course, means that we—the editors and the contributors
—are translating ancient concepts into modern ones. We can only think about ancient
categories and practices at all by first mapping them onto modern categories—keeping in
mind that our mappings will be rough and raw. It is no more anachronistic to employ the
modern term “science” (or Wissenschaft, or 科学, kē xué) than it is to apply any modern
term—such as “book” or “city,” or “food” or “school”—to a corresponding ancient Greek
concept or practice. Scholars employ modern terms, such (p. 2) as “astronomy,” to
encompass what ancient Greeks or others included in their study of the heavens, and so
also for “mathematics” or “medicine” or the rest.
For any of us to attempt to speak or reason about ancient science without translating
would be a comic futility, of the sort that Jonathan Swift might mock. But attempts at
translation may fare better or worse—do ours pass muster? Among the ancient Greeks,
terms such as epistēmē, theōria, pragmateia, tekhnē, phusiologia, and “natural
philosophy” were commonly used to cover a semantic range largely overlapping the
modern English “science.” To label the work of ancient mathematicians, astronomers,
doctors, and the like as science is valid: on the basis of shared goals, namely,
comprehending, explaining, and sometimes predicting natural phenomena.
We the editors firmly intended to be inclusive of science generally, that is, to include all
the sciences that could reasonably be so designated. Some of those, notably alchemy and
astrology, would not pass muster in the world of Einstein and Fermi as sciences. But all
that we include herein was validly science for the ancient practitioners and theorists—
that is, all that we include involve attempts to understand how the world of nature
worked and to construct models of that world to convey insight into its workings. If one
excluded astrology and alchemy from the study of ancient science on the grounds their
foundations and results have been invalidated (as indeed they have), we would also need
to exclude ancient astronomy (which was highly geocentric) and ancient medicine (which
was firmly humoral). If we can accept as somehow scientific a geocentric cosmos
populated by livings beings constituted of humors, we must likewise accept stellar
influences and material transmutation.
Page 2 of 8

Introduction
We the editors also firmly wanted to include some material on other ancient cultures to
see the science of the Greco-Roman (“classical”), world in its wider context. We wanted to
do so, however, without losing our chosen focus on Greco-Roman science. Our intent may
be clarified by considering the analogy of the hypothetical “Oxford Handbook of Science
and Medicine in the Sanskrit World” (or “Mesopotamian World”). Surely such a volume
(highly desirable in its own right) would be rendered all the more insightful and valuable
if it were to include some similar context-setting essays, on other cultures of antiquity,
and especially on the Greco-Roman world.
Attentive readers will note that the essays of the first section, on other ancient cultures,
mostly focus on mathematics, astral sciences, and medicine, and that not all such
sciences are covered for each of the four cultures, Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China.
Would that we had been able to find contributors to cover the missing topics! As our
editor at Oxford University Press can attest, we exerted lengthy and considerable effort,
and greatly regret that our success was partial—as, indeed, fate will have it for any effort
in our actual and contingent world. And it need hardly be said that we are aware that
many other cultures, other than or even prior to those we have touched upon here, must
also have had some science—but because science refers to a conceptual framework, we
require texts to study, and those alas we lack, or they are few and not yet fully decoded.
Given then that our central focus is on Greco-Roman science, how shall we study that
evolving system of concepts, across 13 or more centuries, from ca 650 BCE to ca 650 CE?
(p. 3) There have been typically two approaches, susceptible of being designated
“reception studies” and “antiquarian studies,” both of which are burdened with what may
be called the “great weight of the past.” Some scholars have studied ancient science as if
collecting antiquarian oddities, of no larger or current relevance: this approach subjects
the ancient ideas to the authority of our modern views. Others have studied ancient
science as if elucidating the reception of its ideas by later writers, whether themselves
also ancient or later: this approach subjects the ancient ideas to the authority of their
prior texts (so that Plato is preferred over Plotinus, Hippocrates over Galen, and Aristotle
over Alexander of Aphrodisias).
Those two modes of scholarship on ancient science reflect the literary and philosophical
debate that flared in the Renaissance, known as the “quarrel of the ancients and
moderns.” Those who favored the ancients were favoring authority and adhered to a
model of history as a process of decay, a view that emerges in Hesiod and the Hebrew
scriptures, but persists in, for example, John Donne (see Hesiod, Works and Days 109–
201; Isaiah 51.6; Psalm 102.25–27; Lucretius 2.1105–1174; D.L. 7.141; Donne 1611;
Lowenthal 2015, 226–232). The opposing party, in favoring the moderns, was advocating
that progress in some form was possible, and, in particular, they were arguing that people
“now” could exceed the achievements of the ancients (see Vesalius 1543; Gilbert 1600;
Bacon 1623, sec.4.2; Swift 1704).
Page 3 of 8

Introduction
Perhaps we may step aside from that debate if we can conceive of science as an organic
evolving whole, so that there is no question of subjecting the ancient ideas to any
authority. Instead, let us humbly take the ancient ideas for what they are and study them
as a system that changed and grew over time, leading in an unbroken series of small
changes to our era (Keyser 2013). However alien the ideas of ancient Greeks—or indeed
ancient Chinese or ancient Egyptians—may have been, those ideas were ideas about the
same world in which we also live and were attempts to achieve the same goal that modern
scientists have, the goal of understanding (Lloyd 1996; 2002). No radical break is
possible, and science cannot have emerged suddenly, sometime, and somewhere, as if
from the brow of Athena (Lloyd 2009, chap. 9, 159–160).
That outlook in turn throws some light on the somewhat unusual position of Greco-Roman
science in world history. In the four cultures surveyed briefly (all too briefly) in the first
section of essays, we may observe that the role of classic texts and the scholars who
studied them was very much an effort of reception studies.
That is most apparent in the history of Chinese science and literature from the early Han
dynasty (ca 100 BCE) onward, where a “classic” (jing, 经) was a text of a certain age,
attributed to an honored founder, around which an interpretive tradition flourished that
attracted students and inspired teachers; among the jing were the main scientific texts
from ancient China. The teachers and students formed a “lineage” (jia, 家), within which
students owed respect and deference to the teacher, and the most excellent student
would succeed the teacher when he died. The lineage copied, memorized, and
commented upon the text, ensuring its survival and elucidating the “veiled meanings or
hidden dimensions” in the founder’s discourse, so that they could be “applied variably to
new situations” (Sivin 1995; Lewis 1999, 53–97; Lloyd and Sivin 2002, 42–61).
The Sanskrit tradition, from the Maurya era (ca 300–200 BCE) onward, offers a
(p. 4)
very similar structure, in the succession (paramparā) of teacher (ācārya) and pupil
(shishya) in a Vedic intellectual tradition, passing on knowledge and practice, and
preserving the text around which the succession formed; the scientific texts of ancient
India were preserved in this system. Here also the student began by memorizing the text
that formed the basis of the tradition and owed his teacher the duty of preserving the
tradition into which the teacher had initiated him. The work of the lineage was to produce
exegetical commentaries on the text that defined the lineage (Hara 1980; Roelcke 1987;
Jacobsen 2011).
In the scribal traditions of both Mesopotamia and Egypt, from the second millennium BCE
onward, the scribe was an honored and revered figure, who, among other duties, passed
on the wisdom of bygone ages. In Egypt, the texts that played the largest role in this
tradition seem to have been ethical precepts attributed to specific, named ancient sages,
although probably the scientific texts that survive were propagated in a similar way
(Williams 1972; Assmann 1991, 476–478; Piacentini 2001). In Mesopotamia, the Assyrian
and Babylonian scribes preserved, translated, and commented on the classic texts of
Page 4 of 8

Introduction
Sumerian literature, including science. Here the text tradition only gradually achieved
stability of content and form, and the precise wording, unlike in the other three
traditions, was fluid (Olivier 1975, 49–54; Rochberg-Halton 1984, 127–137).
As argued by Rochberg-Halton (1984, 133–134 / 2010, 72–73), these “classic” traditions,

dedicated to preserving a text and its attendant reinterpretations, tended to preserve and
conserve their content, rather than prompting debate or development. The preservative
path is not the only path for readers of classic texts, and “interpretive communities” can
become actively innovative, as argued by Fish (1980, 338–371). The traditions of China
and India, and to a lesser degree those of Egypt and Mesopotamia, thus provide an
analogy with certain literary and scientific traditions within Greek scientific writing,
pointing out both the preservative nature of such lineages and yet also showing how
Greek science pressed against its “classic” boundaries.
Plato’s dialogues served as the classic text of the Academy; whereas much later (from the
1st and 2nd centuries CE), Aristotle’s essays also served much the same function for
philosophers, especially for the Neoplatonists. The school founded by Epicurus treated
his letters and longer works as classics, which later Epicureans studied. The medical
schools founded in the first half of the 3rd century BCE by Herophilus and Erasistratus
preserved and interpreted the texts of their founders. When those three schools withered
away in the 1st and 2nd centuries CE, their texts soon afterward became lost, except for
quotations, sometimes extensive, by outsiders. A final example from the Greek world is
the fellowship imagined in the Hippocratic Oath (cf. Lloyd and Sivin 2002, 112), in which
the student swears to pass on the teacher’s knowledge only within the Hippocratic
lineage.
In the end, the study of ancient Greco-Roman science, like any study, is undertaken for its
own sake and cannot be justified by an appeal either to some basis upon which it is
founded or to some benefit which it may confer. This situation is like the study of any
ancient or foreign discipline—music, painting, philosophy, poetry—those practitioners
(p. 5) were doing what we do, we think (see above on translation), and their efforts are
worthy of appreciation and study in their own right. So also science: humani nil a me
alienum puto (Terence, Heautontimoroumenos, 77).
The volume before you is made up of five parts. The first offers essays on the sciences of
ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, and China. In the second part, the contributors have
sketched what we know of the science of the period up through Plato and the early
Academy. The third and largest part focusses on the science of Aristotle, the Peripatetic
school, and the long Hellenistic era generally. The fourth part, somewhat overlapping
with the third, treats the science of the Greco-Roman period. The last part offers essays
on the science of Late Antiquity, including the very earliest phase of the Byzantine
Empire. These divisions seemed to us the “natural joints” of our material, as did the
individual topics of the dozens of essays. We strove to employ ancient actors’ categories,
suitably translated, insofar as we could, rather than retrojecting modern categories in an
Page 5 of 8

Introduction
eisegetical way. But as always, we translate when we analyze, and our syntheses are
limited by our imperfect insight.
Last, but never least, let us now thank helpful people. A work such as this depends not
only on its many contributors but also on scholars who gave advice, read drafts, wrote
referee’s reports, or (especially) helped us find contributors. Among those, we pick out
for note these five: David Creese (Newcastle), Wiebke Denecke (Boston), Marco
Formisano (Utrecht), Susan Mattern (Atlanta), and Karine Chemla (Paris). The work is
better for their efforts, but they are in no way to be held responsible for its defects.
Readers please also note that the bibliographic closing date of this volume was November
31, 2016—items appearing after that date could only be cited or used in exceptional
cases.
Bibliography
Assmann, Jan. “Weisheit, Schrift und Literatur im alten Ägypten.” In Weisheit, ed. Aleida
Assmann, 475–500. München: Fink, 1991.
Bacon, Francis. De Augmentis Scientiarum. London: Haviland, 1623.
Donne, John. Anatomie of the World. London: Macham, 1611.
Fish, Stanley. Is There a Text in This Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1980.
Gilbert, William. De Magnete. London: Short, 1600.
Hara, Minoru. “Hindu Concepts of Teacher: Sanskrit Guru and Ācārya.” In Sanskrit and
Indian Studies: Essays in Honour of Daniel H. H. Ingalls, ed. Masatoshi Nagatomi, B. K.
Matilal, J. M. Masson, and E. C. Dimock, Jr., 93–118. Dordrecht and Boston: Reidel, 1980.
Jacobsen, Knut A. “Gurus and Ācāryas.” In Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism, ed. Knut A.
Jacobsen, vol. 3, 227–234. Leiden: Brill, 2011.
Keyser, Paul T. “The Name and Nature of Science: Authorship in Social and Evolutionary
Context.” In Writing Science: Medical and Mathematical Authorship in Ancient Greece,
ed. Markus Asper, 17–61. Berlin and Boston: de Gruyter, 2013.
Lewis, Mark Edward. Writing and Authority in Early China. Albany: State University of
New York Press, 1999.
Lloyd, G. E. R. Adversaries and Authorities: Investigations into Ancient Greek and

(p. 6)
Chinese Science. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
———. The Ambitions of Curiosity: Understanding the World in Ancient Greece and China.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Page 6 of 8

Introduction
———. Disciplines in the Making: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Elites, Learning, and

Innovation. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2009.
Lloyd, Geoffrey, and Nathan Sivin. The Way and the Word. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2002.
Lowenthal, David. The Past Is a Foreign Country—Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge

Olivier, J. P. J. “Schools and Wisdom Literature.” Journal of Northwest Semitic Languages

4 (1975): 49–60.
Piacentini, Patrizia. “Scribe.” Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, ed. Donald B.

Redford, vol. 3, 187–192. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Rochberg-Halton, Francesca. “Canonicity in Cuneiform Texts.” Journal of Cuneiform

Studies 36.2 (1984): 127–144; repr. as chap. 3 in her In the Path of the Moon: Babylonian
Celestial Divination and Its Legacy, 65–84. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
Roelcke, Volker. “Medical Thought in Ancient Greece and India: Comments on the
Relation Between Social Organisation and Medical Ideology.” Cambridge Journal of
Anthropology 12.3 (1987): 41–66.
Sivin, Nathan. “Text and Experience in Classical Chinese Medicine.” Knowledge and the
Scholarly Medical Traditions, ed. Don Bates, 177–204. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge
Swift, Jonathan. An Account of a Battel Between the Antient and Modern Books in St.
James’s Library. London: Nutt, 1704, 4th ed. 1705.
Vesalius, Andreas. De humani corporis fabrica. Basel: Oporini, 1543.
Williams, Ronald J. “Scribal Training in Ancient Egypt.” Journal of the American Oriental
Society 92.2 (1972): 214–221.
Paul T. Keyser
Paul T. Keyser, Independent Scholar, Chicago, New York, and Pittsburgh, USA
Page 7 of 8

Introduction
Page 8 of 8

Mesopotamian Beginnings for Greek Science?

JoAnn Scurlock
Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Classical Studies, Ancient Science and Medicine
Online Publication Date: Jul 2018 DOI: 10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199734146.013.2
Abstract and Keywords
This chapter studies the influential tradition of Mesopotamian medicine. Two distinct
kinds of medical experts collaborated to diagnose and to treat illness, the āšipu and the
asû, who are respectively analogous to the Greek iatros and pharmakopōlēs. Assyrian
herbals are organized by medical effect, much like Dioscorides’ herbal. The Diagnostic
and Predictive Series, standardized by ca 1050 bce, provides evaluations of illnesses from
head to toe, plus evaluations by category such as fever, neurology, obstetrics and
gynecology, and pediatrics. Mesopotamian medicine was very familiar with contagion.
The attribution of diseases to gods, ghosts, or demons was simply the āšipu’s way of
subdividing broad categories of disease, much as we aggregate symptoms.
Keywords: contagion, diagnosis, Diagnostic and Predictive Series, diseases, epilepsy, herbals, prognosis
Page 1 of 14

THE great flourishing of Greek science did not take place in a vacuum. Long before the
conquests of Alexander, there was a significant Greek presence in the Near East,
beginning with the planting of colonies in the eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor in
the 8th century BCE. Descendants of these colonists apparently encountered Assyrian
expansion at least once, when the Yaunaya (Ionians, i.e. Greeks) sent tribute to Sargon II
(721–705) from Cyprus. Eusebius also quotes Abydenos to the effect that Sennacherib
(704–681) battled and defeated an Ionian Greek fleet (FGrH 685 F 5, §6; see also:
Scurlock 2004a, 10; especially Röllig 1971, 643–647; and Braun 1982b, 1–31).
Cultural contacts expanded dramatically with the founding of Naukratis to house Greek
mercenaries. Greek armor was found at Carchemish (Braun 1982a, 49; Wiseman 1991,
230) where the final battle of the fall of Assyria (614–605 BCE) was fought. Contacts
between Greeks and non-Greeks in the ancient Near East, particularly Egypt, intensified
further as Athenians supported Egyptian revolts against the Persian Empire. A
Babylonian named Berossos wrote a history of his land in Greek for the edification of his
patron, Antiochus I (FGrH 680; Burstein 1978). From later periods, we have the so-called
Greco-Babyloniaca, that is, texts in Akkadian (i.e. Assyro-Babylonian) language but
written using the Greek alphabet with a view to giving Greek scholars who wanted to
learn Akkadian access to the rich literary and scientific tradition of ancient Mesopotamia
(Geller 1997).
That Egyptian sciences reached Greece is well established, and it is beginning to be

realized just how much of ancient Greek mathematical astronomy has an ancient
Mesopotamian foundation (see Rochberg, in this volume). Beginning already in the
Persian period, the mix of cultures in the ancient Near East produced the Hellenistic
science par excellence, and that was astrology, with its sister science of astrological
medicine (Scurlock and al-Rawi 2006), which allowed illness associated with conjunctions
of the planets to be averted by using the right wood as a fumigant, the right plants and
(p. 36) other ingredients as a salve, and wearing the right stone as a charm (Finkel 2000,
212–217; Heeßel 2005).
1. Āšipu and Asû: Iatros and Pharmakopōlēs

In ancient Mesopotamia, there were two separate medical experts who worked together
to diagnose and treat illness; so, too, in Greece, the division of labor was quite similar
(Scurlock 1999; 2005, 304–306). The āšipu was, roughly speaking, the equivalent of the
modern physician and the Greek iatros, whereas the asû corresponds to the modern
pharmacist and the Greek pharmakopōlēs. These correspondences are not, however,
exact. The modern physician does not think of himself as a philosopher, whereas the
ancient Greek iatros did. The āšipu fell into the middle ground between these two poles,
practicing medicine rather than philosophy but on occasion, as in the passage cited
below, waxing philosophical about his craft.
Page 2 of 14

All physicians are frustrated that babies are hard to diagnose and that the impending
death of elderly patients is all too clear. This inspired one ancient Mesopotamian
physician to write this meditation on “evil death”:
When a human being is born/comes out of the womb, nobody can recognize its
signs. [Only later] do they become apparent. It is as if they grow fat with him and
grow tall with him. . . . The illness of that illness is a thing that can never be
removed, the evils of that illness, of that false sleep.
(Böck 2007, 223, lines 3–7 with Scurlock 2011, 98–99).
Like his modern colleague, the āšipu was the one expected to diagnose illnesses and,
again like the modern physician, he prescribed medicines to be delivered to the patient
by the pharmacist. However, modern physicians do not make a regular practice of
directly providing patients with needed medicines, whereas the āšipu apparently
frequently made up and administered medicinal preparations to his patients himself. Like
modern physicians, he also gave a prognosis and, in hopeless cases, forbade his colleague
the pharmacist from offering quack cures to desperate patients or their friends and
relatives.
For those who had simple problems not requiring diagnosis, or who knew from sad
experience what was wrong, or who had gotten the ancient equivalent of a prescription
from a physician, there was a second healing specialist known as the asû, the equivalent
of the pharmakopōlēs and the European pharmacist. There were a thousand or so
medicines known to ancient Mesopotamians, mostly plants or plant parts, but also animal
and mineral substances; the asû needed information about supply, the right time to collect
them, and how to store and process them for maximum efficiency. Like the physician, the
pharmacist also had a stock of recitations to use to ensure the efficacy of (p. 37) the
treatments he sold customers. Like the physician, he experimented with his plants to
determine the most efficacious for specific medical conditions. There were, of course,
midwives and unofficial experts, many of them probably also women. It is unfortunate
that we shall probably never know to what extent the temple of the goddess Gula at Isin
(modern Išān al-Baḥrīyāt in Iraq) provided an alternative locus of treatment. The site was
under excavation but has now been completely destroyed (due to illicit excavations and
looting in the wake of the 2003 American invasion). In ancient Greece, there was
definitely an alternative to the Hippocratic iatros in the form of the asklepieion where
patients came to spend the night and hopefully to receive the treatment of their dreams.
Young boys from priestly families being groomed as physicians studied long hours in their
own or relatives’ houses, passing through several grades of apprenticeship before being
allowed to practice (Maul 2010). Along the way, much time was spent copying (Finkel
2000) and making commentaries on texts relevant to the discipline. So, too, Hippocratic
physicians (Scurlock 2004b, 5–7).
Page 3 of 14

It has been argued that Dioscorides was the “inventor” of the schema of organization of
plants by medical use (Riddle 1985, 22–24). In fact, the tradition goes back to the third
millennium BCE in the ancient Near East (Neumann 2010, 4). Neo-Assyrian exemplars
indicate that the pharmacist’s stock in trade included vademecum texts, that is, listings of
plants with instructions for preparation. A typical entry from a vademecum text reads:
pirʾi eqli is a plant to remove opaque spots in the eye. It is to be ground and [put]
on the opaque spot. (BAM 423 i 9')
There are also two fragmentary works known to us by their ancient names, Šammu
šikinšu (literally, the plant, its nature), which gave descriptions of plants, and
URU.AN.NA, which was essentially an ancient plant glossary providing information on
synonyms and substitutions.
Šammu šikinšu prefixes to the medical use a description of the plant using the rudiments
of a system of plant taxonomy (similar to Dioscorides, whose manuscripts add drawings).
This allows an unknown plant to be described in terms of known plants with distinctive
heads, leaves or seed pods. So, for example:
The plant which resembles supālu and whose seed is red is called ellibu. It is good
for removing limpness and numbness. You grind it and rub him gently with it
(mixed) with oil.
The plant which resembles duḫnu-millet is called anunūtu. It is good for ears that
produce pus. You grind it and pour it into his [ears] (mixed) with oil. (SpTU 3.106 i
1'-4')
Some entries also give specific reference to habitat:
The plant which resembles laptu-vegetable but which continually seeks out the
front side (i.e., the plant turns to face the sunlight), and which comes up in
irrigated fields and which when you pull it up, its root bends [is called] liddanānu.
(SpTU 3.106 i 19'-21')
It is clear that these ancient Mesopotamian texts were written and read as
(p. 38)
practical manuals. In contrast to the Hippocratic iatros and more in line with the modern
physician, the āšipu had a philosophy of “use whatever works”. A long tradition of
experimentation revealed that many plants and other natural products have medicinal
properties. Ancient Mesopotamians did not know that plants developed these properties
to defend themselves against insects as, for example, by targeting their predators’ central
nervous systems. What they did know was that plants could effectively be used to treat
patients for quite a wide variety of diseases and conditions. Where plants are well
attested, and we have some idea of what they were, we are in a position to understand
just how sophisticated herbal medicine can be. For kamantu, which has some 97
Page 4 of 14

references in ancient Mesopotamian therapeutic texts and which is probably henna, we

can account for every medical use by the āšipu (Scurlock 2007).
For example, in gynecological use, the āšipu ground the seed of kamantu, mixed it with
first quality beer and used it in a potion “to have seed.” Hellenistic Greek physicians were
in agreement with the āšipu that women and men had “seed” (Stol 2000, 8). Indeed, given
Greek “folk” tradition which held that the woman was the oven where the man baked his
loaves (as in the tale in Herodotus 5.92.η2–3), it is not unlikely that the idea of women’s
“seed” reached the Greeks from Mesopotamia (Scurlock 2006a, 175). What “having seed”
meant in practical terms is that the woman had regular periods and was able to bear live
children. Modern studies of henna have shown (Scurlock 2007, 517–518) that it is an
oxytocic drug. Oxytocic drugs stimulate uterine contractions and the ejection of milk,
slightly lower blood pressure, and slightly dilate coronary arteries. In women who are not
pregnant, they increase the tone, amplitude, and frequency of uterine contraction, thus
bringing on menstruation. However, the uterus is resistant to oxytocic drugs during the
first and second trimesters of pregnancy, which allows a fertilized egg to develop. As the
pregnancy progresses, the susceptibility of the uterus also increases. What this means is
that administering an oxytocic drug like kamantu in the third trimester of pregnancy will
amplify uterine contractions, thus allowing the baby to be born (Scurlock 2007, 517–520).
Thus the āšipu’s use of herbal medicines to regulate female fertility was well-founded.
Similarly, ancient Mesopotamian physicians were quite right to prescribe date kernels,
which contain plant estrogens, for irregular menstruation (BAM 237 i 25’); and to use
šūmu-garlic (Allium sativum L.), which is a vasodilator, in combination with zibû-black
cumin (Nigella sativa L.), which is antihistaminic, to treat ghost-induced tinnitus (roaring
in the ears; for more details on the diagnosis and treatment of tinnitus see Scurlock and
Stevens 2007).
2. Diagnostic and Prognostic Series

In division of specialties, uses of commentaries, and the practice of generating herbal
handbooks, ancient Mesopotamia is in line with the Greek world. Numerous parallels
(p. 39) down to the level of language between ancient Mesopotamian therapeutic texts
and the Hippocratic Corpus (Scurlock 2004a, 14–15) strongly suggest some sort of
meeting of the minds. The same may be said for the ancient Mesopotamian Diagnostic
and Prognostic Series, a set of 2 tablets containing medical omens and a further 38
tablets explaining how to diagnose and prognosticate diseases and conditions on the
basis of signs observed by the āšipu or symptoms described to him by his patients
(Scurlock 2014, 13–271). Tablet 36 of this series offers many predictions of the sex of a
fetus, based on difficulties experienced by the expectant mother, that appear in later
classical authors almost verbatim, albeit with the sexes reversed (Mesopotamian:
Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 277–279; classical: Hanson 2004, 298).
Page 5 of 14

The Diagnostic and Predictive Series had been systematized by the reign of the
Babylonian king Adad-apla-idina (1068–1047 BCE). We know the name of the editor,
Esagil-kīn-apli (Finkel 1988). Ancient Mesopotamian diagnosis was based on face-to-face
examination of the patient, soliciting symptoms by asking pertinent questions and noting
signs by looking carefully at the patient’s color, general appearance and movement;
examining his feces, urine and vomitus; listening to his breathing and bowel sounds;
feeling his temperature and body configuration; and noting the odor of his breath and of
infected wounds. (For more details and myriad examples, see Scurlock and Andersen
2005.)
Ancient Mesopotamian āšipus generated a special vocabulary to describe medically

significant signs (e.g., different types of pain, paralysis, spontaneous movement, and skin
lesions). They knew how to tell whether a woman was pregnant by looking for what we
understand to be chemical changes in the womb (Reiner 1982; Scurlock and Andersen
2005, 262) compared with inserting a garlic clove into the vagina and then checking to
see whether her breath smelled of garlic—a method favored by Hippocratic and Egyptian
physicians (Hanson 2004, 296–297). Ancient Mesopotamian physicians also devised a
number of diagnostic maneuvers, for instance, what modern physicians call the Moro
test, which is used to this day to evaluate the neurologic system of infants: “If you
suspend an infant by his neck and he does not jerk and does not stretch out his arms, he
was ‘gotten’ by the dust” (i.e. he will die) (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 341).
The Diagnostic and Prognostic Series contained information on the development of

symptoms over the course of a disease, in some cases, day by day and in others five-day
period by five-day period. There were also sections that helped the āšipu to distinguish
one disease or condition from another similar disease or condition, what we call
differential diagnosis (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 575–576). Of the 38 purely medical
tablets in this series, 12 went systematically down the body in head to toe order, that is,
signs and symptoms relating to the head were listed first, beginning with the patient who
had been sick for one day and the top of whose head felt hot but whose temporal blood
vessels were not pulsating. The listings continue with signs and symptoms of the neck
and so on down the body to the toes ending with signs relating to the blood vessels of the
feet. These listings were followed by tablets on fever, neurology, obstetrics and
gynecology, and pediatrics (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 575–677, charts).
On the neurology tablets, it is possible to recognize descriptions of what we call

(p. 40)
grand mal seizures, petit mal seizures, simple partial seizures, and complex partial
seizures, in addition to sensory seizures, gelastic seizures, status epilepticus, and phases
of seizures including the post-ictal state, not to mention narcolepsy, cataplexy, stroke, and
coma. Pseudo-seizures were differentiated from the real thing. For example, complex
partial seizures:
If what afflicts him does so in close sequence and when it comes over him, he
wrings his hands like one whom cold afflicts, he stretches out his feet, he jerks a
Page 6 of 14

lot and then is quiet, (and) he gazes at the one who afflicts him, “hand” of the
binder.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 320–322)
Then, gelastic seizures:
[I]f when (a falling spell) falls upon him, he turns pale and laughs a lot and his
hands and his feet are continually contorted, “hand” of lilû-demon.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 322)
Third, pseudo-seizures:
If it afflicts him in his sleep and he gazes at the one who afflicts him, it flows over
him and he forgets himself, he shudders like one whom they have awakened and
he can still get up; alternatively, when they try to wake him, he is groggy, false
“hand” of lilû. For a woman, a lilû; he can get up afterwards.
There is also a clinical description of what is now called Parkinson’s disease (similarly
described by Parkinson in 1817):
If his head trembles, his neck and his spine are bent, he cannot raise his mouth to
the words, his saliva continually flows from his mouth, his hands, his legs and his
feet all tremble at once, and when he walks, he falls forward, if . . . he will not get
well.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 336–337; with Scurlock 2010, 57)
Likewise, what appears to be Lesch-Nyhan (described again in 1964): “If he chews his
fingers and eats his own lips” (Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 163).
A similar systematization of the therapeutic texts, with a matching series, also in head-to-
toe order, seems to have taken place in the neo-Assyrian period (943–612 BCE) (Scurlock
2014, 295–336). Included in these therapeutic texts are everything from bandages for
headaches, salves for fever, drops for sore eyes, fumigants for otitis media, distillate
daubs for the lungs, enemas for intestinal gas, urethral irrigations for urinary tract
problems, and tampons for irregular menstruation (Scurlock 2005, 310–312; Heeßel et al.
2010, 45–162; (Scurlock 2014, 361–645). Making a distillate was devilishly simple. The
plant mixture to be distilled went into a crescent-shaped diqāru bowl, and a second,
burzigallu, bowl with a hole bored into it was inverted over the top and sealed (p. 41)
round the rim with dough made from emmer flour. When the bottom bowl was put over a
fire, the mixture boiled and distillate condensed onto the cool upper bowl where it was
harvested by means of a straw inserted through the hole (Scurlock 2014, 465–469, 480–
483).
Page 7 of 14

3. The Role of the Gods

The problem, from our point of view, is that much of ancient Mesopotamian diagnosis was
in terms of gods, ghosts, and demons and that the treatments included recitations,
prayers, amulets, and even full-fledged rituals alongside more conventional medical
treatments. The āšipu also performed a variety of purification rituals for the community in
connection with calendric rites or for individuals desiring success in business, an end to
domestic quarrels, and other personal matters.
We should not assume that the presence of supernatural causes is a sign of a pseudo-
scientific approach and the dictation of inappropriate, even ridiculous, treatments as, for
example, having the patient avoid food tabooed by Poseidon if you imagine him to have
neighed like a horse during his seizure. This was, allegedly, the practice of ancient Greek
sacred disease specialists (Scurlock 2004a, 12–13). By contrast, the āšipu began by
making a full assessment of his patient to determine whether or not he/she had a case
that he could treat. Having decided that he could treat it, he prescribed herbal medicines.
The diagnosis ensured that the right medicines were going to the right patients and that
whatever was causing the problem was forced or persuaded by the administration of the
medicine to go away and leave her/him alone. The parallel with modern germ theory is
striking and, indeed, modern germ theory was greeted in some quarters as a revival of
Babylonian demonology. For example, Jastrow states:
This primitive germ theory has, in fact, a great advantage over the modern
successor, for to the imagination of primitive man the germ is obliging enough to
take on tangible shape. It does not hide itself, as the modern germ insists upon
doing, so as to be discernible only when isolated and under the gaze of a powerful
microscope, nor must its existence be hypothetically assumed. The ancient germ
was not ashamed of itself; it showed its teeth and even its tail and its horns. The
germ was a demon, an evil spirit that was sufficiently accommodating to sit for its
portrait. (1917, 232)
The attribution of diseases to gods, ghosts, or demons was simply the āšipu’s way of
subdividing broad categories of disease such as mental illness, neurological conditions,
arthritis, skin diseases, heart and circulatory problems, illness due to trauma, and fevers.
The result of the āšipu’s efforts was a system in which only a little over half of the
syndromes could be assigned to already-known spirits. Of the remainder, some were
attributed to a malfunctioning body part, for instance “sick liver,” by which they meant
what we call hepatitis. The rest were given a name based on some characteristic, for
(p. 42) instance “stinking” for syndromes involving foul smell and grayish lesions in the
mouth. (For more on this type of diagnosis, see Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 503–506).
As is the general rule in polytheistic religions, gods, ghosts, demons, malfunctioning body
parts, or anything else that was causing trouble was believed to interact with humans in
the hopes of being bought off. It is also generally the case, what we call omens (including
Page 8 of 14

the so-called astrological omens) were not understood as causal factors triggering cosmic
sympathies but as a language, or rather series of languages, whereby the spirits
communicated with mankind (Farber 1995, 1899–1900).
It followed from this that the apparent omens represented by what we still call medical
signs and symptoms were a code whereby a particular spirit could identify her- or himself
and his or her specific desires for offerings—what we call medicines. In other words, if a
particular spirit had a particular craving, he or she made someone ill through a particular
set of symptoms known to the āšipu. Translated into our own “natural causes” idiom,
what is happening in either case is that by producing symptoms, the body is telling you,
as it were, in sign language, what is wrong so that you (or your doctor) can take
appropriate action.
The use of what we call “magic” was also of medical use to patients in that it treated the
illness and the disease. In addition to diagnosing diseases and applying medicines,
ancient Mesopotamian physicians also performed healing in a way that allowed the
patient to see the doctor and his medicines in action and to personally participate in the
healing process. Since it is the human body aided by the mind that is the single most
important factor in medicine, this approach is not to be frowned upon.
Magic is a self-consistent system. The magical elements of Mesopotamian medicine were

demonic magic (for details see Scurlock 2004a, 16–20). Demonic magic is predicated on
the notion that what makes rituals work is the more or less willing participation of
sentient beings who operate by human logic and whose ways may be discerned by
observation and experiment. Demonic magic is, then, a system of thought that, like
polytheistic religion and modern “hard” science, is empirically rational, and a human
universal in its general outlines. Mesopotamian physicians thus saw no contradiction (nor
indeed was there any) in enlisting in the healing process, alongside more obviously
medical pills, potions, bandages and enemas, also demonic “magic” and “religion.” The
former (magic) included items such as historiolae (magic origin stories), threats and
forced oaths, addresses in archaic or invented languages, and the employment of magical
analogies. The latter (religion) involved sacrifices and respectful addresses in prayer
asking for assistance to gods including patrons of magical and medical healing, such as
the goddess Gula and the triad of gods Ea (god of freshwater and wisdom), Asalluḫi (god
of medicine, equated with Marduk of Babylon) and Šamaš (sun god and god of justice).
Indeed, preserved recitations are a mix of what to us is scientific knowledge and a no-
nonsense approach to treatment, with silly nonsense—addressing the indwelling spirits in
what we consider inanimate objects as if they were people, and appealing to gods in
whose existence we do not believe. Witness the following charming recitations that
describe (1) the process of digestion in ruminants, (2) human intestinal movement (p. 43)
(peristalsis) in a patient with intestinal bloating with gas, and (3) the necessity for
applying medicine and not just “magic” to medical problems.
Page 9 of 14

The sheep, when it vomits up [the grass], the mouth gives it to the karšu-stomach,
the karšu-stomach to the riqitu-stomach, the riqitu-stomach to the rear; it falls as
mere dung and the grass receives it. Grass which receives every evil receive mine
from me and, grass, carry off my evil!
Human intestinal movements:
The [. . . are continually] loosened; the stomach is twisted; intestines are

knotted . . . the darkness. Its face is like ditch water covered with algae. [Wind]
from the steppe blows in, is put down, and roams the steppe. Its eyes (i.e., the
greater and lesser omentum) are full; its “lips” continually dry out. It wriggles like
a fish and makes itself bigger like a snake. When Gula, giver of life, brought
mankind to the temple of Asalluḫi, merciful Marduk looked upon the young man
and he belched and the young man got well. Either let the wind come out of the
anus, or let it send out a belch from the throat.
(Scurlock and Andersen 2005, 117–118)
The need for medicine:
The she-goat is yellow; her kid is yellow; her shepherd is yellow; her chief
herdsman is yellow; she eats yellow grass on the yellow ditch-bank; she drinks
yellow water from the yellow ditch. He threw a stick at her but it does not turn her
back; he threw a clod at her but it did not raise her head. He threw at her a
mixture of thyme and salt and the bile began to dissolve like the mist. The
recitation is not mine; it is the recitation of Ea and Asalluḫi, the recitation of Damu
and Gula. Recitation for pašittu.
(Scurlock 2005, 313)
In short, the way to cure pašittu was not to throw sticks and clods at imaginary goats but
to apply medicine reinforced by an appropriate recitation.
Page 10 of 14

4. Conclusion
In sum, ancient Greeks were familiar with ancient Mesopotamian medicine, and borrowed
much from it. Unfortunately, it is also true that there would have been a lot less suffering
over the course of the history of the Western world if the ancient Greeks had borrowed
more than they did. All too often, Hippocratic physicians allowed their theories to dictate
inappropriate and sometimes dangerous remedies, for example, using an anticoagulant to
“stop” bleeding, cauterizing the armpits of athletes with dislocated shoulders after using
a device similar to the torture rack to get the bones back into place, deliberately giving a
patient acute pneumothorax to “treat” a pleural infection, or using a (p. 44) bow drill on a
patient with a bruised bone to create a gap in the skull (!) (Majno 1975, 141–206;
Scurlock 2006a, 80–81; cf. Scurlock 2004a, 24). Moreover, they rarely admitted the
possibility of person-to-person transmission of disease (Scurlock 2004a, 25), something
known in Mesopotamia since at least the second millennium BCE (Finet 1954–1957, 129).
Among Hippocratic treatments there is also a procedure that appears to have descended
from a known Mesopotamian treatment for draining the lungs by making an incision and
inserting a lead tube (Scurlock 2005, 312). But otherwise, in treating patients, the
Hippocratic system was reductionist and minimalist, showing a strong preference for
bleeding, purging and a starvation diet, after which nature was to be allowed to take its
course. (For details, and comparison to ancient Mesopotamian regimens, see Scurlock
2004a, 13–14.)
However, there were ancient Greek doctors who based some of the finest medical
observations ever penned on an ancient Mesopotamian foundation (Scurlock 2004a, 20–
24). And the biggest surprise is the partial acceptance of ancient Mesopotamian
diagnoses with “supernatural” causes as a starting point for discussion—minus, of course,
the god, ghost, or demon originally in the text. So, for example, kausos is based, in
conformity to expectations, on an ancient Mesopotamian diagnostic category without a
supernatural cause. However, phrenitis is based on, of all things, “hand” of ghost
(Scurlock 2004a, 14–15, 27–29). Indeed, one could argue that much of Greek medicine,
including Aretaeus of Cappadocia and Soranus of Ephesus (Scurlock 2008, 195–202), is
incomprehensible without knowledge of the Mesopotamian texts to which ancient Greek
scholars clearly had access.
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A child should be happy; he must, in every way, be made happy;
everything ought to be done to conduce to his happiness, to give him
joy, gladness, and pleasure. Happy he should be, as happy as the day
is long. Kindness should be lavished upon him. Make a child
understand that you love him; prove it in your actions—these are
better than words; look after his little pleasures—join in his little
sports; let him never hear a morose word—it would rankle in his
breast, take deep root, and in due time bring forth bitter fruit. Love!
let love be his pole-star; let it be the guide and the rule of all you do
and all you say unto him. Let your face, as well as your tongue, speak
love. Let your hands be ever ready to minister to his pleasures and to
his play. “Blessed be the hand that prepares a pleasure for a child, for
there is no saying when and where it may again bloom forth. Does
not almost everybody remember some kind-hearted man who
showed him a kindness in the dulcet days of childhood? The writer of
this recollects himself, at this moment, a bare-footed lad, standing at
the wooden fence of a poor little garden in his native village, while,
with longing eyes, he gazed on the flowers which were blooming
there quietly in the brightness of the Sabbath morning. The
possessor came from his little cottage. He was a woodcutter by trade,
and spent the whole week at work in the woods. He had come into
the garden to gather flowers to stick in his coat when he went to
church. He saw the boy, and breaking off the most beautiful of his
carnations (it was streaked with red and white), he gave it to him.
Neither the giver nor the receiver spoke a word, and with bounding
steps the boy ran home. And now, here, at a vast distance from that
home, after so many events of so many years, the feeling of gratitude
which agitated the breast of that boy, expressed itself on paper. The
carnation has long since faded, but it now bloometh afresh.”[201]
The hearty ringing laugh of a child is sweet music to the ear. There
are three most joyous sounds in nature—the hum of a bee, the purr
of a cat, and the laugh of a child. They tell of peace, of happiness, and
of contentment, and make one for awhile forget that there is so much
misery in the world.
A man who dislikes children is unnatural; he has no “milk of
human kindness” in him; he should be shunned. Give me, for a
friend, a man—
“Who takes the children on his knee,
And winds their curls about his hand.”[202]
166. If a child be peevish, and apparently in good health, have

you any plan to offer to allay his irritability?
A child’s troubles are soon over—his tears are soon dried; “nothing
dries sooner than a tear”—if not prolonged by improper
management:
“The tear down childhood’s cheek that flows,
Is like the dewdrop on the rose;
When next the summer breeze comes by,
And waves the bush, the flower is dry.”[203]
Never allow a child to be teased; it spoils his temper. If he be in a

cross humor take no notice of it, but divert his attention to some
pleasing object. This may be done without spoiling him. Do not
combat bad temper with bad temper—noise with noise. Be firm, be
kind, be gentle,[204] be loving, speak quietly, smile tenderly, and
embrace him fondly; but insist upon implicit obedience, and you will
have, with God’s blessing, a happy child:
“When a little child is weak,
From fever passing by,
Or wearied out with restlessness,
Don’t scold him if he cry.
Tell him some pretty story—

Don’t read it from a book;
He likes to watch you while you speak,
And take in every look.
Or sometimes singing gently—

A little song may please,
With quiet and amusing words,
And tune that flows with ease.
Or if he is impatient,
Perhaps from time to time
A simple hymn may suit the best,
In short and easy rhyme.
The measured verses flowing

In accents clear and mild,
May blend into his troubled thought,
And soothe the little child.
But let the words be simple,

And suited to his mind,
And loving, that his weary heart
A resting-place may find.”[205]
Speak gently to a child; speak gently to all; but more especially

speak gently to a child. “A gentle voice is an excellent thing in
woman,” and is a jewel of great price, and is one of the concomitants
of a perfect lady. Let the hinges of your disposition be well oiled. “‘I
have a dear friend. He was one of those well-oiled dispositions which
turn upon the hinges of the world without creaking.’ Would to
heaven there were more of them! How many there are who never
turn upon the hinges of this world without a grinding that sets the
teeth of a whole household on edge! And somehow or other it has
been the evil fate of many of the best spirits to be so circumstanced;
both men and women, to whom life is ‘sweet habitude of being,’
which has gone far to reconcile them to solitude as far less
intolerable! To these especially the creakings of those said rough
hinges of the world is one continued torture, for they are all too
finely strung; and the oft-recurring grind jars the whole sentient
frame, mars the beautiful lyre, and makes cruel discord in a soul of
music. How much of sadness there is in such thoughts! Seems there
not a Past in some lives to which it is impossible ever to become
reconciled?”[206]
Pleasant words ought always to be spoken to a child! there must be
neither snarling, nor snapping, nor snubbing, nor loud contention
toward him. If there be it will ruin his temper and disposition, and
will make him hard and harsh, morose and disagreeable.
Do not be always telling your child how wicked he is; what a
naughty boy he is; that God will never love him, and all the rest of
such twaddle. Do not, in point of fact, bully him, as many poor little
fellows are bullied! It will ruin him if you do; it will make him in
after-years either a coward or a tyrant. Such conversations, like
constant droppings of water, will make an impression, and will cause
him to feel that it is of no use to try to be good—that he is hopelessly
wicked! Instead of such language, give him confidence in himself;
rather find out his good points and dwell upon them; praise him
where and whenever you can; and make him feel that, by
perseverance and by God’s blessing, he will make a good man. Speak
truthfully to your child; if you once deceive him, he will not believe
you for the future. Not only so, but if you are truthful yourself you
are likely to make him truthful—like begets like. There is something
beautiful in truth! A lying child is an abomination! Sir Walter Scott
says “that he taught his son to ride, to shoot, and to tell the truth.”
As soon as a child can speak, he should be made to lisp the noble
words of truth, and to love it, and to abhor a lie! What a beautiful
character he will then make! Blessed is that child who can say,—
“Parental cares watched o’er my growing youth,
And early stamped it with the love of truth.”[207]
Have no favorites, show no partiality; for the young are very

jealous, sharp-sighted, and quick-witted, and take a dislike to the
petted one. Do not rouse the old Adam in them. Let children be
taught to be “kindly affectioned one to another, with brotherly
love;”[208] let them be encouraged to share each other’s toys and
playthings, and to banish selfishness.
Attend to a child’s little pleasures. It is the little pleasures of a child
that constitute his happiness. Great pleasures to him and to us all (as
a favorite author remarks) come but seldom, and are the exceptions,
and not the rule.
Let a child be nurtured in love. “It will be seen that I hold this law
of kindness as the Alpha and Omega of education. I once asked one,
in his own house, a father in everything but the name, his authority
unquestioned, his least word held in reverence, his smallest wish
obeyed—‘How did you ever manage to bring up these children?’ He
said, ‘By love!’”[209]
Let every word and action prove that you love your children. Enter
into all their little pursuits and pleasures. Join them in their play,
and “be a child again!” If they are curious, do not check their
curiosity; but rather encourage it; for they have a great deal—as we
all have—to learn, and how can they know if they are not taught? You
may depend upon it, the knowledge they obtain from observation is
far superior to that obtained from books. Let all you teach them, let
all you do, and let all you say, bear the stamp of love. “Endeavor,
from first to last, in your intercourse with your children, to let it bear
the impress of love. It is not enough that you feel affection toward
your children—that you are devoted to their interests; you must show
in your manner the fondness of your hearts toward them. Young
minds cannot appreciate great sacrifices made for them; they judge
their parents by the words and deeds of everyday life. They are won
by little kindnesses, and alienated by little acts of neglect or
impatience. One complaint unnoticed, one appeal unheeded, one
lawful request arbitrarily refused, will be remembered by your little
ones more than a thousand acts of the most devoted affection.”[210]
A placid, well-regulated temper is very conducive to health. A
disordered or an overloaded stomach is a frequent cause of
peevishness. Appropriate treatment in such a case will, of course, be
necessary.
167. My child stammers: can you tell me the cause, and can you
suggest a remedy?
A child who stammers is generally “nervous,” quick, and
impulsive. His ideas flow too rapidly for speech. He is “nervous:”
hence, when he is alone, and with those he loves, he oftentimes
speaks fluently and well; he stammers more both when he is tired,
and when he is out of health—when the nerves are either weak or
exhausted. He is emotional: when he is either in a passion or in
excitement, either of joy or of grief, he can scarcely speak—“he
stammers all over.” He is impulsive: he often stammers in
consequence. He is in too great a hurry to bring out his words; they
do not flow in a proper sequence; hence his words are broken and
disjointed.
Stammering, of course, might be owing either to some organic
defect, such as from defective palate, or from defective brain, then
nothing will cure him; or it might be owing to “nervous” causes—to
“irregular nervous action,” then a cure might, with care and
perseverance, be usually effected.
In all cases of stammering of a child, let both the palate of his
mouth and the bridle of his tongue be carefully examined, to see that
neither the palate be defective, nor the bridle of the tongue be too
short—that he be not tongue-tied.
Now, with regard to Treatment. Make him speak slowly and
deliberately; let him form each word, without clipping or chopping;
let him be made, when you are alone with him, to exercise himself in
elocution. If he speak quickly, stop him in his mid-career, and make
him, quietly and deliberately, go through the sentence again and
again, until he has mastered the difficulty; teach him to collect his
thoughts, and to weigh each word ere he give it utterance; practice
him in singing little hymns and songs for children; this you will find
a valuable help in the cure. A stammerer seldom stutters when he
sings. When he sings, he has a full knowledge of the words, and is
obliged to keep in time—to sing neither too fast nor too slow.
Besides, he sings in a different key to his speaking voice. Many
professors for the treatment of stammering cure their patients by
practicing lessons of a sing-song character.
Never jeer him for stammering, nor turn him to ridicule; if you do,
it will make him ten times worse; but be patient and gentle with him,
and endeavor to give him confidence, and encourage him to speak to
you as quietly, as gently, and deliberately as you speak to him; tell
him not to speak until he has arranged his thoughts and chosen his
words; let him do nothing in a hurry.
Demosthenes was said, in his youth, to have stammered fearfully,
and to have cured himself by his own prescription, namely, by
putting a pebble in his mouth, and declaiming, frequently, slowly,
quietly, and deliberately, on the sea-shore—the fishes alone being his
audience,—until, at length, he cured himself, and charmed the world
with his eloquence and with his elocution. He is held up, to this very
day, as the personification and as the model of an orator. His
patience, perseverance, and practice ought, by all who either are, or
are interested in a stammerer, to be borne in mind and followed.
168. Do you approve of a carpet in a nursery?
No; unless it be a small piece for the child to roll upon. A carpet
harbors dirt and dust, which dust is constantly floating about the
atmosphere, and thus making it impure for him to breathe. The truth
of this may easily be ascertained by entering a darkened room, where
a ray of sunshine is struggling through a crevice in the shutters. If the
floor of a nursery must be covered, let drugget be laid down; as this
every morning may be taken up and shaken. The less furniture a
nursery contains the better; for much furniture obstructs the free
circulation of the air, and, moreover, prevents a child from taking
proper exercise in the room.
169. Supposing there is not a fire in the nursery grate, ought the
chimney to be stopped to prevent a draught in the room?
Certainly not. I consider the use of a chimney to be twofold: first,
to carry off the smoke; and secondly (which is of quite as much
importance), to ventilate the room, by carrying off the impure air,
loaded as it is with carbonic acid gas, the refuse of respiration. The
chimney, therefore, should never, either winter or summer, be
allowed for one moment to be stopped. This is important advice, and
requires the strict supervision of every mother, as servants will, if
they have the chance, stop all chimneys that have no fires in the
grates.
EXERCISE.
170. Do you approve, during the summer months, of sending a

child out BEFORE breakfast?
I do, when the weather will permit, and provided the wind be
neither in an easterly nor in a northeasterly direction: indeed, he can
scarcely be too much in the open air. He must not be allowed to
stand about draughts or about entries, and the only way to prevent
him doing so is for the mother herself to accompany the nurse. She
will then kill two birds with one stone, as she will, by doing so,
benefit her own as well as her child’s health.
171. Ought a child to be early put on his feet to walk?
No: let him learn to walk himself. He ought to be put upon a
carpet; and it will be found that when he is strong enough, he will
hold by a chair, and will stand alone: when he can do so, and
attempts to walk, he should then be supported. You must, on first
putting him upon his feet, be guided by his own wishes. He will, as
soon as he is strong enough to walk, have the inclination to do so.
When he has the inclination and the strength, it will be folly to
restrain him; if he has neither the inclination nor the strength, it will
be absurd to urge him on. Rely, therefore, to a certain extent, upon
the inclination of the child himself. Self-reliance cannot be too early
taught him, and, indeed, every one else. In the generality of
instances, however, a child is put on his feet too soon, and the bones,
at that tender age, being very flexible, bend, causing bowed and
bandy legs; and the knees, being weak, approximate too closely
together, and thus they become knock-kneed.
This advice of not putting a child early on his feet, I must strongly
insist on, as so many mothers are so ridiculously ambitious that their
young ones should walk early, that they should walk before other
children have attempted to do so, have frequently caused the above
lamentable deformities!
172. Do you approve of perambulators?
I do not, for two reasons: first, because when a child is strong
enough, he had better walk as much as he will; and, secondly, the
motion is not so good, and the muscles are not so much put into
action, and consequently cannot be so well developed, as when he is
carried. A perambulator is very apt to make a child stoop, and to
make him both crooked and round-shouldered. He is cramped by
being so long in one position. It is painful to notice a babe a few
months old in one of these new-fangled carriages. His little head is
bobbing about, first on one side and then on the other—at one
moment it is dropping on his chest, the next it is forcibly jolted
behind: he looks, and doubtless feels, wretched and uncomfortable.
Again, these perambulators are dangerous in crowded thoroughfares.
They are a public nuisance, inasmuch as they are wheeled against
and between people’s legs, and are a fruitful source of the breaking of
shins, of the spraining of ankles, of the crushing of corns, and of the
ruffling of the tempers of the foot-passengers who unfortunately
come within their reach; while, in all probability, the gaping nurses
are staring another way, and every way indeed but the right!
Besides, in very cold weather, or in a very young infant, the
warmth of the nurse’s body, while he is being carried, helps to keep
him warm, he himself being naturally cold. In point of fact, the child,
while being borne in the nurse’s arms, reposes on the nurse, warm
and supported as though he were in a nest! While, on the other hand,
if he be in a perambulator, he is cold and unsupported, looking the
very picture of misery, seeking everywhere for rest and comfort, and
finding none!
A nurse’s arm, then, is the only proper carriage for a young child
to take exercise on. She ought to change about, first carrying him on
the one arm, and then on the other. Nursing him on one arm only
might give his body a twist on one side, and thus might cause
deformity.
When he is old enough to walk, and is able properly to support the
weight of his own neck and back, then there will be no objection,
provided it be not in a crowded thoroughfare, to his riding
occasionally in a perambulator; but when he is older still, and can sit
either a donkey or a pony, such exercise will be far more beneficial,
and will afford him much greater pleasure.
173. Supposing it to be wet under foot, but dry above, do you then
approve of sending a child out?
If the wind be neither in the east nor the northeast, and if the air
be not damp, let him be well wrapped up and be sent out. If he be
laboring under an inflammation of the lungs, however slight, or if he
be just recovering from one, it would, of course, be highly improper.
In the management of a child, we must take care neither to coddle
nor to expose him unnecessarily, as both are dangerous.
Never send a child out to walk in a fog; he will, if you do, be almost
sure to catch cold. It would be much safer to send him out in rain
than in fog; though neither the one nor the other would be desirable.
174. How many times a day, in fine weather, ought a child to be
sent out?
Let him be sent out as often as it be possible. If a child lived more
in the open air than he is wont to do, he would neither be so
susceptible of disease, nor would he suffer so much from teething.
175. Supposing the day to be wet, what exercise would you then
recommend?
The child ought to run either about a large room or about the hall;
and, if it does not rain violently, you should put on his hat and throw
up the window, taking care while the window is open that he does
not stand still.
Do not on any account allow him to sit any length of time at a
table, amusing himself with books, etc.; let him be acting and
stirring, that his blood may freely circulate as it ought to do, and that
his muscles may be well developed. I would rather see him actively
engaged in mischief, than sitting still, doing nothing. He ought to be
put on the carpet, and should then be tumbled and rolled about, to
make the blood bound merrily through the vessels, to stir up the
liver, to promote digestion, and to open the bowels. The misfortune
of it is, the present race of nurses are so stuck out with crinoline, that
they are not able to stoop properly, and thus to have a good game at
romps with their little charges.
176. Supposing it to be winter, and the weather to be very cold,
would you still send a child out?
Decidedly, provided he be well wrapped up. The cold will brace
and strengthen him. Cold weather is the finest tonic in the world.
In frosty weather, the roads being slippery, when you send him out
to walk, put a pair of large, old woolen stockings over his boots or
shoes. This will not only keep his feet and his legs warm, but it will
prevent him from falling down and hurting himself. While thus
equipped, he may even walk on a slide of ice without falling down.
A child, in the winter time, requires, to keep him warm, plenty of
flannel and plenty of food, plenty of fresh and genuine milk, and
plenty of water in his tub to wash him in a morning, plenty of
exercise and plenty of play, and then he may brave the frosty air. It is
the coddled, the half-washed, and the half-starved child (half-washed
and half-starved from either the mother’s ignorance or from the
mother’s timidity), that is the chilly starveling,—catching cold at
every breath of wind, and every time he either walks or is carried out,
—a puny, skinny, scraggy, scare-crow, more dead than alive, and
more fit for his grave than for the rough world he will have to
struggle in!
AMUSEMENTS.
177. Have you any remarks to make on the amusements of a

child?
Let the amusements of a child be as much as possible out of doors;
let him spend the greater part of every day in the open air; let him
exert himself as much as he pleases, his feelings will tell him when to
rest and when to begin again; let him be what Nature intended him
to be—a happy, laughing, joyous child. Do not let him be always
poring over books.
“Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife,
Come, hear the woodland linnet!
How sweet his music! On my life
There’s more of wisdom in it.
And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!

He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,—
Let Nature be your teacher.
She has a world of ready wealth,

Our minds and hearts to bless,—
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.
One impulse from a vernal wood,

May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.”[211]
He ought to be encouraged to engage in those sports wherein the

greatest number of muscles are brought into play. For instance, to
play at ball, or hoop, or football, to play at horses, to run to certain
distances and back; and, if a girl, to amuse herself with a skipping-
rope, such being excellent exercise—
“By sports like these are all their cares beguiled,—
The sports of children satisfy the child.”[212]
Every child, where it be practicable, should have a small plot of

ground to cultivate, that he may dig and delve in, and make dirt-pies
if he choose. Children, nowadays, unfortunately, are not allowed to
soil their hands and their fine clothes. For my own part, I dislike
such model children; let a child be natural—let him, as far as is
possible, choose his own sports. Do not be always interfering with his
pursuits, and be finding fault with him. Remember, what may be
amusing to you may be distasteful to him. I do not, of course, mean
but that you should constantly have a watchful eye over him; yet do
not let him see that he is under restraint or surveillance; if you do,
you will never discover his true character and inclinations. Not only
so, but do not dim the bright sunshine of his early life by constantly
checking and thwarting him. Tupper beautifully says:
“And check not a child in his merriment.—
Should not his morning be sunny?”
When, therefore, he is either in the nursery or in the play-ground,

let him shout and riot and romp about as much as he pleases. His
lungs and his muscles want developing, and his nerves require
strengthening; and how can such be accomplished unless you allow
them to be developed and strengthened by natural means?
The nursery is a child’s own domain; it is his castle, and he should
be Lord Paramount therein. If he choose to blow a whistle, or to
spring a rattle, or to make any other hideous noise, which to him is
sweet music, he should be allowed, without let or hinderance, to do
so. If any members of the family have weak nerves, let them keep at a
respectful distance.
A child who never gets into mischief must be either sly, or delicate,
or idiotic; indeed, the system of many persons in bringing up
children is likely to make them either the one or the other. The
present plan of training children is nearly all work (books), and very
little play. Play, and plenty of it, is necessary to the very existence of a
child.
A boy not partial to mischief, innocent mischief, and play, is
unnatural; he is a man before his time, he is a nuisance, he is
disagreeable to himself and to every one around. “A boy not fond of
fun and frolic may possibly make a tolerable man, but he is an
intolerable boy.”
Girls, at the present time, are made clever simpletons; their brains
are worked with useless knowledge, which totally unfits them for
everyday duties. Their muscles are allowed to be idle, which makes
them limp and flabby. The want of proper exercise ruins the
complexion, and their faces become of the color of a tallow candle!
And precious wives and mothers they make when they do grow up!
Grow up, did I say! They grow all manner of ways, and are as
crooked as crooked sticks!
What an unnatural thing it is to confine a child several hours a day
to his lessons; why, you might as well put a colt in harness, and make
him work for his living! A child is made for play; his roguish little
eye, his lithe figure, his antics, and his drollery, all point out that he
is cut out for play—that it is as necessary to his existence as the food
he eats, and as the air he breathes!
A child ought not to be allowed to have playthings with which he
can injure either himself or others, such as toy-swords, toy-cannons,
toy-paint-boxes, knives, bows and arrows, hammers, chisels, saws,
etc. He will not only be likely to injure himself and others, but will
make sad havoc on furniture, house, and other property. Fun, frolic,
and play ought, in all innocent ways, to be encouraged; but willful
mischief and dangerous games ought, by every means, to be
discountenanced. This advice is frequently much needed, as children
prefer to have and delight in dangerous toys, and often coax and
persuade weak and indulgent mothers to gratify their wishes.
Painted toys are, many of them, highly dangerous, those painted
green especially, as the color generally consists of Scheele’s green—
arsenite of copper.
Children’s paint-boxes are very dangerous toys for a child to play
with: many of the paints are poisonous, containing arsenic, lead,
gamboge, etc., and a child, when painting, is apt to put the brush into
his mouth, to absorb the superabundant fluid. Of all the colors, the
green paint is the most dangerous, as it is frequently composed of
arsenite of copper—arsenic and copper—two deadly poisons.
There are some paint-boxes warranted not to contain a particle of
poison of any kind: these ought, for a child, to be chosen by a
mother.
But, remember, although he ought not to be allowed to have
poison paint-boxes and poison-painted toys, he must have an
abundance of toys, such as the white-wood toys—brewers’ drays,
millers’ wagons, boxes of wooden bricks, etc. The Noah’s Ark is one
of the most amusing and instructive toys for a child. “Those
fashioned out of brown, unpainted pine-wood by the clever carvers of
Nuremberg or the Black Forest are the best, I think, not only because
they are the most spirited, but because they will survive a good deal
of knocking about, and can be sucked with impunity. From the first
dawn of recollection, children are thus familiarized with the forms of
natural objects, and may be well up in natural history before they
have mastered the A B C.”[213]
Parents often make Sunday a day of gloom: to this I much object.
Of all the days in the week, Sunday should be the most cheerful and
pleasant. It is considered by our Church a festival; and a glorious
festival it ought to be made, and one on which our Heavenly Father
wishes to see all His children happy and full of innocent joy! Let
Sunday, then, be made a cheerful, joyous, innocently happy day, and
not, as it frequently is, the most miserable and dismal in the week. It
is my firm conviction that many men have been made irreligious by
the ridiculously strict and dismal way they were compelled, as
children, to spend their Sundays. You can no more make children
religious by gloomy asceticism, than you can make people good by
Act of Parliament!
One of the great follies of the present age is, children’s parties,
where they are allowed to be dressed like grown-up women, stuck
out in crinoline, and encouraged to eat rich cake and pastry, and to
drink wine, and to sit up late at night! There is something disgusting
and demoralizing in all this. Their pure minds are blighted by it. Do
not let me be misunderstood: there is not the least objection, but, on
the contrary, great advantage, for friends’ children to meet friends’
children; but then let them be treated as children, and not as men
and women!
178. Do you approve of public play-grounds for children?
It would be well, in every village, and in the outskirts of every
town, if a large plot of ground were set apart for children to play in,
and to go through regular gymnastic exercises. Play is absolutely
necessary to a child’s very existence, as much as food and sleep; but
in many parts of England where is he to have it? Play-grounds and
play are the best schools we have; they teach a great deal not taught
elsewhere; they give lessons in health, which is the grandest wealth
that can be bestowed—“for health is wealth;” they prepare the soil for
the future school-master; they clear the brain, and thus the intellect;
they strengthen the muscles; they make the blood course merrily
through the arteries; they bestow healthy food for the lungs; they
give an appetite; they make a child, in due time, become every inch a
man! Play-grounds and play are one of the finest Institutions we
possess. What would our large public schools be without their play
and cricket-grounds? They would be shorn of half their splendor and
usefulness!
There is so much talk nowadays about useful knowledge, that the
importance of play and play-grounds is likely to be forgotten. I
cannot help thinking, however, that a better state of things is
dawning. “It seems to be found out that in our zeal for useful
knowledge, that knowledge is found to be not the least useful which
treats boys as active, stirring, aspiring, and ready.”[214]
EDUCATION.
179. Do you approve of infant schools?

I do, if the arrangements be such that health is preferred before
learning.[215] Let children be only confined for three or four hours a
day, and let what little they learn be taught as an amusement rather
than as a labor. A play-ground ought to be attached to an infants’
school; where, in fine weather, for every half hour they spend in-
doors, they should spend one in the open air; and, in wet weather,
they ought to have, in lieu of the play-ground, a large room to romp,
and shout, and riot in. To develop the different organs, muscles, and
other parts of the body, children require fresh air, a free use of their
lungs, active exercise, and their bodies to be thrown into all manner
of attitudes. Let a child mope in a corner, and he will become stupid
and sickly. The march of intellect, as it is called, or rather the double
quick march of intellect, as it should be called, has stolen a march
upon health. Only allow the march of intellect and the march of
health to take equal strides, and then we shall have “mens sana in
corpore sano” (a sound mind in a sound body).
In the education of a young child, it is better to instruct him by
illustration and by encouraging observation on things around and
about him, than by books. It is surprising how much, without
endangering the health, may be taught in this way. In educating your
child, be careful to instill and to form good habits—they will then
stick to him for life.
Children at the present day are too highly educated—their brains
are overtaxed, and thus weakened. The consequence is, that as they
grow up to manhood, if they grow up at all, they become fools!
Children are now taught what formerly youths were taught. The
chord of a child’s life is ofttimes snapped asunder in consequence of
overeducation:
“Screw not the chord too sharply, lest it snap.”[216]
You should treat a child as you would a young colt. Think only at
first of strengthening his body. Let him have a perfectly free, happy
life, plenty of food to eat, abundance of air to breathe, and no work to
do; there is plenty of time to think of his learning—of giving him
brain work. It will come sadly too soon; but do not make him old
before his time.
180. At what age do you advise my child to begin his course of
education—to have his regular lessons?
In the name of the prophet,—Figs! Fiddlesticks! about courses of
education and regular lessons for a child! You may as well ask me
when he, a child, is to begin Hebrew, the Sanscrit, and Mathematics!
Let him have a course of education in play; let him go through
regular lessons in football, bandy, playing at tic, hares and hounds,
and such like excellent and really useful and health-giving lessons.
Begin his lessons! Begin brainwork, and make an idiot of him! Oh!
for shame, ye mothers! You who pretend to love your children so
much, and to tax, otherwise to injure, irreparably to injure their
brains, and thus their intellects and their health, and to shorten their
very days. And all for what? To make prodigies of them! Forsooth! to
make fools of them in the end.
181. Well, then, as you have such a great objection to a child
commencing his education early in life, at what age may he, with
safety, commence his lessons? and which do you prefer—home or
school education?
Home is far preferable to a school education for a child. If at home,
he is under your own immediate observation, and is not liable to be
contaminated by naughty children; for, in every school, there is
necessarily a great mixture of the good and of the bad; and a child,
unfortunately, is more likely to be led by a bad than by a good child.
Moreover, if the child be educated at home, the mother can see
that his brain be not overworked. At school the brain is apt to be
overworked, and the stomach and the muscles to be underworked.
Remember, as above stated, the brain must have but very little
work until the child be seven years old: impress this advice upon
your memory, and let no foolish ambition to make your child a clever
child allow you, for one moment, to swerve from this advice.
Build up a strong, healthy body, and in due time the brain will bear
a moderate amount of intellectual labor.
As I have given you so much advice, permit me, for one moment,
to address a word to the father of your child:
Let me advise you, then, Mr. Paterfamilias, to be careful how you
converse, what language you use, while in the company of your child.
Bear in mind, a child is very observant, and thinks much, weighs
well, and seldom forgets all you say and all you do? Let no hasty
word, then, and more especially no oath, or no impious language,
ever pass your lips, if your child is within hearing. It is, of course, at
all times wicked to swear; but it is heinously and unpardonably sinful
to swear in the presence of your child! “Childhood is like a mirror,
catching and reflecting images. One impious or profane thought,
uttered by a parent’s lip, may operate upon the young heart like a
careless spray of water thrown upon polished steel, staining it with
rust, which no after-scouring can efface.”
Never talk secrets before a child—“little pitchers have long ears;” if
you do, and he disclose your secrets,—as most likely he will,—and
thus make mischief, it will be cruel to scold him; you will, for your
imprudence, have yourself only to blame. Be most careful, then, in
the presence of your child, of what you say and of whom you speak.
This advice, if followed, might save a great deal of annoyance and
vexation.
182. Are you an advocate for a child being taught singing?
I am; I consider singing a part of a child’s education. Singing
expands the walls of the chest, strengthens and invigorates the lungs,
gives sweetness to the voice, improves the pronunciation, and is a
great pleasure and amusement to a child.
SLEEP.
183. Do you approve of a child sleeping on a FEATHER bed?

A feather bed enervates his body, and, if he be so predisposed,
causes rickets, and makes him crooked. A horse-hair mattress is the
best for a child to lie on. The pillow, too, should be made of horse-
hair. A feather pillow often causes the head to be bathed in
perspiration, thus enervating the child and making him liable to
catch cold. If he be at all rickety, if he be weak in the neck, if he be
inclined to stoop, or if he be at all crooked, let him, by all means, lie
without a pillow.
184. Do you recommend a child, in the middle of the day, to be put
to sleep?
Let him be put on his mattress awake at twelve o’clock, that he
may sleep for an hour or two before dinner, then he will rise both
refreshed and strengthened for the remainder of the day. I said, let
him be put down awake. He might, for the first few times, cry; but,
by perseverance, he will without any difficulty fall to sleep. The
practice of sleeping before dinner ought to be continued until he be
two years old, and if he can be prevailed upon, even longer. For if he
do not have sleep in the middle of the day, he will all the afternoon
and the evening be cross; and when he does go to bed, he will
probably be too tired to sleep, or his nerves, having been exhausted
by the long wakefulness, he will fall into a troubled, broken slumber,
and not into that sweet, soft, gentle repose, so characteristic of
healthy, happy childhood!
185. At what hour ought a child to be put to bed in the evening?
At six in the winter, and at seven o’clock in the summer.
Regularity ought to be observed, as regularity is very conducive to
health. It is a reprehensible practice to keep a child up until nine or
ten o’clock at night. If this be done, he will, before his time, become
old, and the seeds of disease will be sown.
As soon as he can run, let him be encouraged, for half an hour
before he goes to bed, to race either about the hall, or the landing, or
a large room, which will be the best means of warming his feet, of
preventing chilblains, and of making him sleep soundly.
186. Have you any directions to give me as to the placing of my
child in his bed?
If a child lie alone, place him fairly on his side in the middle of the
bed; if it be winter time, see that his arms and hands be covered with
the bedclothes; if it be summer, his hands might be allowed to be
outside the clothes.
In putting him down to sleep, you should ascertain that his face be
not covered with the bedclothes; if it be, he will be poisoned with his
own breath—the breath constantly giving off carbonic acid gas;
which gas must, if his face be smothered in the clothes, be breathed—
carbonic acid gas being highly poisonous.
You can readily prove the existence of carbonic acid gas in the
breathing, by simply breathing into a little lime-water; after
breathing for a few seconds into it, a white film will form on the top;
the carbonic acid gas from the breath unites with the lime of the
lime-water, and the product of the white film is carbonate of lime.
187. Do you advise a bedroom to be darkened at night?
Certainly. A child sleeps sounder and sweeter in a dark than in a
light room. There is nothing better, for the purpose of darkening a
bed room, than Venetian blinds.
Remember, then, a well-ventilated, but a darkened chamber at
night. The cot or the crib ought not to face the window, “as the light
is best behind.”[217]
188. Which is the best position for a child when sleeping—on his
back, or on his side?
His side. He ought to be accustomed to change about—on the right
side one night, on the left another; and occasionally, for a change, he
should lie on his back. By adopting this plan you will not only
improve his figure, but likewise his health. Lying, night after night, in
one position, would be likely to make him crooked.
189. Do you advise, in the winter time, that there should be a fire
in the night nursery?
Certainly not, unless the weather be intensely cold. I dislike fires in
bedrooms, especially for children; they are very enervating, and
make a child liable to catch cold. Cold weather is very bracing,
particularly at night. “Generally speaking,” says the Siècle, “during
winter, apartments are too much heated. The temperature in them
ought not to exceed 16° Centigrade (59° Fahrenheit); and even in
periods of great cold, scientific men declare that 12° or 14° had better
not be exceeded. In the wards of hospitals, and in the chambers of
the sick, care is taken not to have greater heat than 15°. Clerks in
offices, and other persons of sedentary occupations, when the rooms
in which they sit are too much heated, are liable to cerebral [brain]
congestion and to pulmonary [lung] complaints. In bedrooms, and
particularly those of children, the temperature ought to be
maintained rather low; it is even prudent only rarely to make fires in
them, especially during the night.”
“If a cold stable make a healthy horse,” I am quite sure that a
moderately cold and well-ventilated bedroom helps to make a
healthy child. But still, in the winter time, if the weather be biting
cold, a little fire in the bedroom grate is desirable. In bringing up
children, we must never run into extremes—the coddling system and
the hardening system are both to be deprecated; the coddling system
will make a strong child weakly, while the hardening system will
probably kill a delicate one.
A child’s bed ought, of course, to be comfortably clothed with
blankets—I say blankets, as they are much superior to coverlids; the
perspiration will more readily pass through a blanket than a coverlid.
A thick coverlid ought never to be used; there is nothing better for a
child’s bed than the old-fashioned patchwork coverlid, as the
perspiration will easily escape through it.
190. Should a child be washed and dressed AS SOON AS HE AWAKES in
the morning?
He ought, if he awakes in anything like reasonable time; for if he
doze after he be once awake, such slumber does him more harm than
good. He should be up every morning as soon as it is light. If, as a
child, he be taught to rise early, it will make him an early riser for
life, and will tend greatly to prolong both his existence and his
happiness.
Never awake a child from his sleep to dress him, to give him
medicine, or for any other purpose; let him always sleep as long as
he can; but the moment he awakes let him be held out, and then let
him be washed and dressed, and do not wait, as many a silly nurse
does, until he has wet his bed, until his blood be chilled, and until he
be cross, miserable, and uncomfortable! How many babies are made
ill by such foolish practices!
The moment he leaves his bed, turn back to the fullest extent the
clothes, in order that they may be thoroughly ventilated and
sweetened. They ought to be exposed to the air for at least an hour
before the bed be made. As soon as he leaves his room, be it winter or
summer, throw open the windows.
191. Ought a child to lie alone?

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Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Classical Studies

(p. xi) Abbreviations

RE Wissowa, G. et al., eds. Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

SIG Dittenberger, W., and F. H. von Gaertringen, eds. Sylloge Inscriptionum

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Oxford Handbooks Online

Print Publication Date: Aug 2018 Subject: Classical Studies

(p. xiii) Contributors

Fabio Acerbi, CNRS, UMR8167 “Orient et Méditerranée,” Paris, France

Jochen Althoff, Institut für Altertumswissenschaften, Arbeitsbereich Klassische

Mary Beagon, Department of Classics and Ancient History, University of

Alain Bernard, Centre A. Koyré, Paris Est Créteil University, France

Lawrence J. Bliquez, Classics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

Alan C. Bowen, Institute for Research in Classical Philosophy and Science,

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Lauren Caldwell, Departments of History and Classics, Trinity College, Hartford,

Louise Cilliers, Department of English and Classical Languages, University of the

Glen M. Cooper, Independent Scholar, Springville, UT, USA

Elizabeth Craik, School of Classics, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews,

Rosalie David, Centre for Biomedical and Forensic Studies in Egyptology,

James Evans, University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, USA

Kyle Fraser, University of King’s College, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Klaus Geus, Freie Universität Berlin, Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Historische

Pam Gordon, Department of Classics, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Mark Grant, Independent Scholar, Bruton, UK

Andrew Gregory, Department of Science and Technology Studies, University

Michael Griffin, Departments of Philosophy and Classical, Near Eastern,

and Religious Studies, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada

Annette Imhausen, Historisches Seminar und Exzellenzcluster Normative Orders,

Ian Johnston, Independent Scholar, Tasmania, Australia

Philip G. Kaplan, Department of History, University of North Florida, Jacksonville,

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Colin Guthrie King, Department of Philosophy, Providence College, Providence, RI,

Toke Lindegaard Knudsen, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies,

Andreas Kuelzer, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Medieval Research,

Mariska Leunissen, Department of Philosophy, The University of North Carolina at

David Paniagua, Dpto. Filología Clásica e Indoeuropeo, Universidad de Salamanca,

Joachim Friedrich Quack, Ägyptologisches Institut, Heidelberg, Germany

Tracey Rihll, Department of History and Classics, Swansea University, Wales, UK

Francesca Rochberg, Near Eastern Studies, University of California, Berkeley,

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

John Scarborough, Professor Emeritus, Department of History and School of

Lucas Siorvanes, Department of Greek and Latin, University College, London,

Svetla Slaveva-Griffin, Department of Classics, Florida State University,

Fabio Stok, Dipartimento di Studi letterari e filosofici, Università di Roma Tor

Teun Tieleman, Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies, Utrecht

Alexei Volkov, Center for General Education, National Tsing-Hua University,

Subscriber: St Petersburg State University; date: 31 December 2018

Colin Webster, Classics Program, University of California, Davis, CA, USA

Xu Fengxian, Institute for the History of Natural Science, Chinese Academy of