Concepts and treatments of phrenitis in ancient medicine

Abstract

The goal of this dissertation is to investigate ancient medical concepts of phrenitis, a disease associated with high fevers and loss of reason. In particular, my dissertation examines the concepts of, and treatments for phrenitis that were put forth by the Pneumatist Aretaeus of Cappadocia (1st century AD), Galen (2nd century AD), and the Methodist Caelius Aurelianus (5th century AD). These physicians are relatively contemporary in their opinions (insofar as Caelius represents the opinions of the 1 st/2nd century AD Methodist author Soranus), and represent three different theoretical frameworks and approaches to disease. In order to provide a relevant background to the opinions of these physicians, this dissertation includes a review of concepts of phrenitis presented in a number of earlier works, including the Hippocratic Corpus, and the extant fragments of the 4th century Be physicians Diocles and Praxagoras. Together, these works constituted a tradition with which Aretaeus and Galen closely associated themselves, and against which Caelius aggressively polemicised.