Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks

160 Daily Life of the Ancient Greeks
A particularly interesting source of information for the treatment of disease is a
Hippocratic work called Epidemics. It contains 42 case studies of individuals,
25 of which resulted in the patient’s death. In light of the very limited understanding
of how epidemics spread, this is hardly surprising. The writer tells us,
for instance, that on the island of Thasos one year (1.19):
Most of those who fell sick and died were youths, young men, those in the prime
of life, the smooth-skinned, those of fair complexion, persons with either straight
hair or black hair, those with black eyes, persons who lived dissolutely and carelessly,
those with either a thin voice or a rough voice, lispers, and those given to
sensual indulgence. Very many women of this type (i.e., given to sensual indulgence?)
also perished.
The passage also indicates how vulnerability to disease was ascribed to a wide
variety of largely, if not wholly irrelevant factors, including gender, age, skin
color, tone of voice, type of hair, and lifestyle.
Some of the most prevalent diseases in the ancient world are
thought to have been gastroenteritis, dysentery, diarrhea, beriberi,
rickets, scurvy, malaria, typhoid, pneumonia, and tuberculosis.
There is evidence that, in some regions, arteriosclerosis affected as
much as 80 percent of the population. We also hear of diphtheria,
chickenpox, mumps, and whooping cough, but there is no evidence
for either cholera or measles. Leprosy did not reach Greece
until the Hellenistic Period. Cancer was known, with breast cancer,
according to Galen, a physician of the second century c.e. , being
particularly common. Given the extremely high incidence of infant
mortality, childhood diseases, including rickets and anemia, must
have been widespread. Some sexually transmitted diseases were
also known, though not syphilis or gonorrhea. Because most individual
communities were fairly self-contained, epidemics did not
often spread outside their borders.
Although diagnosis was of a high quality, there was very little
understanding about how diseases were transmitted because
there was no notion of germs. Drugs, surgery, purges, and bleeding
were the most common forms of treatment. It is a chilling
reflection that most people had to deal with physical pain on a
level and with a frequency and intensity that is virtually inconceivable
in the West today. It is also a fact that only when they
were severely ill would most Greeks have had the luxury of taking
to their beds; for the most part they would have had to grit
their teeth and get on with it.