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Images of Doctors and their Implements: A Visual Dialogue between the Patient and the Doctor

Baker, Patricia A (2015) Images of Doctors and their Implements: A Visual Dialogue between the Patient and the Doctor. In: Petridou, Georgia and Kolleg, Max-Weber, eds. Homo Patiens - Approaches to the Patient in the Ancient World. Studies in Ancient Medicine (45). Brill, Leiden, pp. 365-389. ISBN 978-90-04-30555-7. (doi:10.1163/9789004305564_016) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:53455)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://doi.org/10.1163/9789004305564_016

Abstract

Images of physicians, patients, and medical instruments were placed on Graeco-Roman funerary monuments, altars and fresco paintings. These representations are examined here to determine whether there existed a standard convention by which physicians were depicted in order that the lay and possibly illiterate viewers could identify what the scene represented. Greek physicians were frequently shown with cupping vessels, midwives were seen with birthing stools, while Roman physicians were often shown with various surgical implements. It is argued that the correlation between the types of objects depicted with the medical practitioner was deliberately made by the artist to signify the nature of medicine in the individual practiced, to that the viewer could identify the role the practitioner had in their society

Item Type: Book section
DOI/Identification number: 10.1163/9789004305564_016
Uncontrolled keywords: Ancient Science & Medicine, Greek & Latin Literature, Classical Studies
Subjects: C Auxiliary Sciences of History > CC Archaeology
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Arts and Humanities > School of Culture and Languages
Depositing User: Jacqueline Martlew
Date Deposited: 15 Dec 2015 15:29 UTC
Last Modified: 05 Nov 2024 10:40 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/53455 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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