“We need to talk about Hippocrates. Current scholarship attributes none of the works of the ‘Hippocratic corpus’ to him, and the ancient biographical traditions of his life are not only late, but also written for their own promotional purposes. Yet Hippocrates features powerfully in our assumptions about ancient medicine, and our beliefs about what medicine – and the physician himself …
In the past few decades, scholars have celebrated the end of history and pro-claimed its rebirth. Outside the walls of the academy, in the media, it is easy to find claims that readers and viewers are “witnessing” (or consuming) history, that certain events, from pie- eating contests to war catastrophes and natural phenomena, are “historical.” Govern…
Bbad are traditional Javanese chronicles written in verse. Although there aremany babad, some dealing with a specific area (Babad Madura), or period(Babad Kartasura), or event (Babad Pacina), the ‘mother’ of all babad is the text known as the Major Babad Tanah Jawi. The latest version of it dates from 1836, althoughthe events described end around the year 1770. It describes the h…
Statues of ancient Egyptian rulers and their gods can be encountered in the grandiose galleries of the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Manhattan’s traffic-choked Fifth Avenue. More humble grave goods, excavated from tombs along the Nile, can be found in homemade cabinets in a South African barn at the end of a dirt track road. Several hundred artefacts made o…
Whilst occupied on many and various studies, I happened to light upon the History of the Kings of Britain, and wondered that in the account which Gildas and Bede, in their elegant treatises, had given of them, I found nothing said of those kings who lived here before the Incarnation of Christ, nor of Arthur and many others who succeeded after the Incarnation, though their actions both deserved …
This book is in no sense a diary of day-to-day travel. Only a single chapter is devoted to the account of the extraordinary journey which Captain[viii] Buchanan and his cinematographer, Mr. Glover, made from Kano in Nigeria to Touggourt in Algiers—a journey of over 3,500 miles through the great desert of Africa. Some idea of the hardships which they encountered may be gathered from the fact t…
The importance of opening a Second Port in China, as connectedwith the Company1 s interests, has escaped the attention of few Personswho have given the least consideration to our connections with that coun-try. Unfortunately, however, there exists so much diversity of opinionas to which Port would be the most favorable that we are involved …
If you ever read the letters of the pioneers who first settled in your locality when it was all a wilderness (and how recent was the time!), you will find them filled with discussion of the possibilities of getting a living and establishing a home there. Were there springs of good water there? Was there native pasturage for the animals? Was there fruit? 'Vas there fish? 'Vas there game? Was t…
The clay army stood in silent formation, guarding the tomb of the first emperor of China. Alert and ready for battle, they were to protect the emperor from evil spirits and robbers. If a robber did manage to break in, he might not escape in one piece—the clay army surrounded the tomb. Over seven hundred thousand workers built the first emperor’s tomb and created his army of clay. And it too…
This open access book studies breath and breathing in literature and culture and provides crucial insights into the history of medicine, health and the emotions, the foundations of beliefs concerning body, spirit and world, the connections between breath and creativity and the phenomenology of breath and breathlessness. Contributions span the classical, medieval, early modern, Romantic, Victori…