History of medicine in Rome

In recent years many exce11ent books bave been written on the history of diseases and medicine in Aneient Rame. AJJ are lhe result of very high spe­ cialized competences; medica} historians bave direct and qualified sources in A.C. Celsus and C. Galeo, both reliable witnesses of the high leve] of compe­ tence of Greek Hippocratic medicine in Rame. Historical studies can also use ancient literature, historiography and archaeology as their secondary sources. On the other band, ancient Rame provides the palaeopathological approach with a quantity of bone remains much higher than any other ancient Mediterranean societies and materials from events a]most unique in the his­ tory of the ancient world, such as the dreadful eruption of Vesuvius dating 79 A.C. Given this availability of numerous and reliable sources, it is surprising thai the hislorical and palaeopalhological approaches bave often been inde­ pendent from each other and not crossed paths, with the exception of particu­ Jar cases i.e. The Healing Band , by G. Majno (The Harvard University Press, 1975) or the more recent I fuggiaschi di Ercolano by L. Capasso (Roma, L'Erma di Bretschneider, 2001). It is even more surprising in Imperia} Rame, a city rich in biological saroples, bones and skeletons offered lo the study of anthropologists, medicai historians, physicians and palaeopathologists. The invitation to a scientific collaboration com ing from Andrea Piccioli, an orlho­ paedist who is attentive and curious to the social, historical and anthropologi­ cal dimensions of ancient diseases, and from Paola Catalano, who is a great experl of physical anthropology in Republican and Imperia] Rame, appeared to me as a Iuck-y and, in a certain way, long expected chance. The subsequent almost daily interaction among different disciplines, which studied the same materials simultaneously - but according to deeply different methodological perspectives - produced (at least in my opinion) some interesting achievements.