Literacy and the Charlatan in Ancient Greek Medicine

Abstract

Outside of the medical treatises themselves, the existence of untrained individuals posing as doctors in ancient Greece is not attested before the fourth century b.c.e. I argue that their appearance in the fourth century is due in part to the early and widespread use of writing among the bona fide medical profession and that the success of some of these charlatans, however circumscribed or short-lived, contributed to the suspicion of medicine that arose among some in the ancient world. The ancient Greeks expected their iatroi – “physicians” – to have undergone extensive medical training with an experienced physician, and most iatroi did so because it was difficult to make a living as an iatros without such training. This is true notwithstanding the fact that many educated laymen took an interest in medical matters, that nonphysicians wrote and spoke on physiology and pathology, and that some individuals without medical training could pose as doctors and dupe patients for a greater or lesser period of time, circumstances that exist in our own culture. In particular, my argument is the following: Natural, empirical medicine was accepted as a technē , and iatroi were respected from the earliest times and not just in surgery. Natural medicine was mainstream in the fifth century. The status of medicine increases in the fourth century to that of a technē par excellence, but at the same time criticism of medicine first appears in nonmedical texts. This is due, in part, not to a greater failure rate among physicians because they were beginning to deal more widely with nonsurgical cases, but to the appearance of individuals who could pose as iatroi with some success without undergoing the traditional extensive training. […]

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