Hidden intercourse : eros and sexuality in the history of Western esotericism /
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From rumours about gnostic orgies in antiquity to the explicit erotic symbolism of alchemical texts, from the subtly coded eroticism of medieval kabbalah to the sexual magic practiced by contemporary occultists and countercultural translations of Asian Tantra, the history of Western esotericism is rich in references to the domains of eros and sexuality. This volume, which brings together an impressive array of top-level specialists, is the first to analyze the eroticism of the esoteric without sensationalism or cheap generalizations, but on the basis of expert scholarship and attention to textual and historical detail. While there are few other domains where the imagination may so easily run wild, the various contributions seek to distinguish fact from fiction--only to find that historical realities are sometimes even stranger than the fantasies. In doing so, they reveal the outlines of a largely unknown history spanning more than twenty centuries.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047443582 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Leisure, pleasure, and healing : spa culture and medicine in ancient eastern Mediterranean /
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The book deals with leisure, pleasure and healing at the thermo-mineral sites in the Levant since the biblical era throughout the Hellenistic, Roman, Byzantine, and early Muslim periods. It looks closely at the question of whether the spas, which are models for social interaction between pagans, Christians and Jews, served as sacred cult places or popular sites of healing. The main objectives of the book are as follows: • Clarifying the leisure-time activities at the spas based on Classical and Rabbinic literature, pilgrims' travel-books, Syriac and Arabic texts, the Geniza fragments, cartographic evidence, and archaeological findings. • Lightening the daily life, healing cults, medical recommendations and treatments. • Examining the social history of medicine at the curative baths.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047420514 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Medieval pharmacotherapy, continuity and change : case studies from Ibn Sīnā and some of his late Medieval commentators /
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The development of medical drug therapy in medieval times can be seen as an interplay between tradition and innovation. This book follows the changes in the therapy from the Arabic medicine of Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) to Latin medical scholasticism, aiming to trace both the continuity and the development in the theory and practice of medieval drug therapy. In this delicate balance between change and continuity a crucial role was played by the scientific community through critical rejection or acceptance of new ideas. The drug choices were in most cases rational also from the point of view of contemporary medical theory. The method used in the book for studying these choices could promote the development of a novel methodology for historical ethnopharmacology.
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Updated version of author's doctoral thesis--Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2002. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789047424505 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
On Theriac to Piso, attributed to Galen : a critical edition with translation and commentary /
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Robert Leigh offers a critical edition with translation into English, commentary and introduction of the pharmacological treatise On Theriac to Piso traditionally attributed to Galen. The focus of the work is on the question of authorship and Leigh seeks to show on textual, pharmacological, doctrinal and historical grounds that the attribution to Galen is at least highly problematic and probably mistaken. As well as marshalling the arguments in the introduction, Leigh seeks in the commentary not only to give a general exegesis of the text but also to identify points of agreement and points of difference between the treatise and other works which are undisputedly in the genuine Galenic corpus.
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This work is a substantially revised version of author's PhD at Exeter University. :
1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references and index. :
9789004306905 :
0925-1421 ; :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.
Hippocratic recipes : oral and written transmission of pharmacological knowledge in fifth- and fourth-century Greece /
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Hippocratic Recipes is the first extended study of the pharmacological recipes included in the Hippocratic Corpus. The recipes, found mostly in the gynaecological and nosological treatises, are here examined both from a philological and a sociocultural point of view. Drawing on studies in the fields of classics, social history of medicine, and anthropology, this book offers new insights into the production and use of pharmacological knowledge in the classical world. In particular, it assesses the deep interactions between oral and written traditions in the transmission of this knowledge. Recipes are addressed as texts, but the existence of 'missing links' in the written tradition are acknowledged.
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1 online resource. :
Includes bibliographical references (p. [303]-326) and indexes. :
9789047424864 :
Available to subscribing member institutions only.