Discourses on Illness: Ancient Ways of Coping with Ill-health
Call for papers
Dates: 6-7 October 2025
This conference, organized by the Department of Classics and Archaeology (University of Malta) in collaboration with the University of Durham, the University of Newcastle and Humboldt University of Berlin, to be held in Malta between 6 and 7 October 2025, is dedicated to investigating the therapeutic role of the spoken and written word in the ancient world.
Even today, speech is central to the practice of medicine. Symptoms and diagnoses can only be communicated verbally and thorough documentation is at the heart of modern medical practice. Many problems in clinical practice can also be traced back to breakdowns of communication between patients and their carers. Words are also central to the process of therapy and, indeed, a form of therapy in and of itself. All the way from the therapist's couch to the public health warnings, speech plays a vital role in inoculating us against illness and helping patients cope with illness.
Greek healers and physicians were well aware of the central role that speech plays in the therapeutic process. Indeed, this consciousness arises early, with magical healing, whose practitioners believed certain phrases to hold power over the human body (Longrigg, 1993: 3-4). The ‘Hippocratic’ physicians, as Lain Entralgo (1970) has proposed, were keenly aware of the healing power of discourse. Sounds could have physiological effects on the liquids οφ the body (e.g. Diseases 1.23) and logoi were among the basic objects of perception, akin to smells (e.g. Humours 4). Moreover, some of their written treatises and oral discourses (Juoanna, 2001) preserved in the Hippocratic Corpus, works which often show a keen interest in rhetoric and persuasion, can be seen as therapeutic devices in themselves. Laskaris (2002), for example, argues that On the Sacred Disease is a protreptic discourse, geared at defending the technical nature, and therefore the power, of rational medicine. At a basic level, therefore, this speech functioned as a ‘health warning’, even arming potential patients and their relatives with arguments with which to ward off these ‘impious hacks’.
Even more interesting is the ‘health warning’ and ‘argumentative armamentarium’ found in On Ancient Medicine, the intended targets of which were philosophical-minded physicians (Schiefsky, 2005: 55-62) who were distinct from this author only by degrees. Part of his critique is an imagined conversation between a hypothetical rival doctor and one of his patients on the matter of treatment. When a philosophical doctor prescribes you ‘something hot’, he urges his audience, then you should ask him where to find such a thing, for ‘heat’ is not something discoverable (Anc. Med. 15). Both Sacred Disease and Ancient Medicine, then, quite apart from their oral delivery, presuppose clinical scenarios which are rich with speech coming from both sides. In fact, both works refer to aporia - a breakdown in dialogue - and imply that this breakdown is also the end of the doctor-patient relationship. Other passages in the Hippocratic Corpus corroborate this impression of a therapeutic practice laden with speech and suggest that a capable doctor can use his speech to guarantee better health-outcomes for his patient or, at least, be persuaded to accept the physician’s advice (e.g., Prognosticon, 1).
Recent scholarship has grown increasingly interested in Galen’s writing technique and especially in his use of rhetorical devices - Galen presents us, after all, with the most refined theory of metaphor between Aristotle and Eustathius of Thessalonica (von Staden 1995). The written word has a therapeutic to Galen in at least three senses: as a learning tool, for his students to become familiar with the theories of their predecessors as well as with the appropriate ways of recognising and handling body parts; as a diagnostic tool, for the doctor that aims at correctly formulating his diagnostic indications; and as an archive of “case histories” that offer glimpses into the social, cultural, and moral aspects of Galen’s own medical activity (Mattern 2008). Certainly more is yet to be said as to the functions of Galen’s enormous literary output and its therapeutic potentials.
This therapeutic potential of medical discourse also connects with broader views on the physiological effects of speech and literature on the body, the most famous example being Aristotle’s doctrine of catharsis. Yet even Gorgias borrows from medicine to describe the effects of speech: in the Helen, speech is likened to a pharmakon that can induce something akin to ‘hallucinations’ as well as soothe the soul and quieten the passions.
This conference seeks to explore the physiological dimensions of speech in the ancient world and to better define the ways in which the spoken and written word were used as a form of therapy and as means to assuage and combat disease. We hope to attract papers from a broad range of disciplines and interests to enable a holistic understanding of the role of speech in ancient medicine and healing (e.g., inscriptions, literary descriptions, medical texts and speeches). We also welcome papers which look at the medical and therapeutic aspects of other literary genres, as well as papers on ancient literary theory and methodology, provided they connect to the primary theme of the conference: the healing word.
Some potential topics might include:
The conference features two plenary talks by distinguished keynote speakers: Prof. Lesley Dean-Jones and Prof. Chiara Thumiger.
If you are interested in participating in this conference, we welcome your anonymized abstract (300 words max.), along with an email containing your name, institutional affiliation, contact information, and the title of your proposal by email
Each accepted speaker will have 30 minutes to deliver their paper, followed by 10 minutes of questions.
Submission deadline: 15 June 2025
Approval notifications will be sent by 15 July 2025
For further information and questions, please contact Jurgen Gatt
Organizing committee:
Elena Bellini
Chiara Blanco
Jurgen R. Gatt
George Gazis
Carmel Serracino.
Bibliography
J. Longrigg. Greek Rational Medicine. Philosophy and medicine from Alcmaeon to the Alexandrians. London and New York: Routledge, 1993.
P. Lain Entralgo. The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity. L. J. Rather; John M. Sharp (trans.). New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1970.
J. Juoanna. Hippocrates. M. B. DeBevoise (trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.
J. Laskaris. The Art is Long: On the Sacred Disease and the Scientific Tradition. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
M. Schiefsky. 2005. Hippocrates On Ancient Medicine: Translated with Introduction and Commentary. Leiden: Brill, 2005.
H. von Staden. ‘Anatomy as rhetoric: Galen on dissection and persuasion.’ J Hist Med Allied Sci. 1995 ;50(1):47-66. doi: 10.1093/jhmas/50.1.47.
S. Mattern. Galen and the Rhetoric of Healing. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.
