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Health and wellbeing in the ancient world

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Health and wellbeing in the ancient world provided by OpenLearn is a comprehensive online course, which lasts for 18 hours worth of material. Upon completion of the course, you can receive an e-certificate from OpenLearn. The course is taught in Englishand is Free Certificate. Visit the course page at OpenLearn for detailed price information.

The Open University via OpenLearn
18 hours worth of material
Self Paced
Overview

  • This free course, Health and wellbeing in the ancient world, investigates the health of people in ancient Greece and Rome, using both literary and archaeological evidence to uncover details of real...

Syllabus

    • Week1Week 1: What is health? Using the evidence
    • Introduction
    • 1 Defining health
    • 1.1 How healthy are you?
    • 1.2 Talking about health
    • 1.3 Health and the gods
    • 1.4 What is health? Ancient answers
    • 1.5 Who is telling us this?
    • 1.6 What is health? Modern definitions
    • 1.7 Other definitions of health
    • 2 Hearing ancient voices
    • 2.1 Literal or not? The role of genre
    • 2.2 Lead curse tablets
    • 3 Keeping your finger on the pulse
    • 3.1 Rich and poor?
    • 3.2 Galen and Marcus Aurelius
    • 3.3 The pulse of love
    • 3.4 Knowing what’s normal
    • 3.5 The importance of location
    • 4 This week’s quiz
    • Summary
    • References
    • Further reading
    • Acknowledgements
    • Week2Week 2: Health and identity: the face and eyes
    • Introduction
    • 1 Vision in ancient times
    • 1.1 How do you see?
    • 1.2 The Evil Eye
    • 1.3 Hearing in colours
    • 1.4 The colours of the past
    • 1.5 Gifts for the gods: votive offerings
    • 1.6 Votive eyes
    • 2 Healing the eyes
    • 2.1 Curing eye disease
    • 2.2 Making collyria
    • 2.3 Cataract surgery
    • 3 Modifying the body
    • 3.1 A good complexion
    • 3.2 Facial reconstruction
    • 4 This week’s quiz
    • Summary
    • References
    • Further reading
    • Acknowledgements
    • Week3Week 3: Eating and drinking
    • Introduction
    • 1 A regimen for everyone
    • 1.1 The role of digestion
    • 1.2 Weight issues in antiquity
    • 1.3 Vegetarianism and other exceptional diets
    • 2 Archaeological evidence for food and health
    • 2.1 Introducing Pompeii and the Vesuvian sites
    • 2.2 Citrus fruits at Pompeii
    • 2.3 Hippocratic apples: finding out more
    • 2.4 Food and bones: further evidence of ancient diet
    • 2.5 Breast milk in antiquity
    • 2.6 Advertising baby feeding
    • 3 Food and drugs
    • 3.1 When does food become a drug?
    • 3.2 Ancient herbals
    • 3.3 Wine: the blood-making drink
    • 3.4 Ancient tonics: antidotes
    • 4 This week’s quiz
    • Summary
    • References
    • Further reading
    • Acknowledgements
    • Week4Week 4: Sanitation
    • Introduction
    • 1 Toilets and waste
    • 1.1 Coprolites: finding out more
    • 1.2 Introducing Roman toilets
    • 1.3 Finding a toilet
    • 1.4 Sharing a toilet
    • 1.5 What did the Romans use for toilet paper?
    • 2 Keeping clean: sewers and bath houses
    • 2.1 The positive sides of sewage
    • 2.2 Baths in the ancient world
    • 2.3 Baths in literature
    • 2.4 How hygienic were ancient cities?
    • 3 Doctors and excrement
    • 3.1 Medicine and purging
    • 3.2 Help or harm?
    • 4 This week’s quiz
    • Summary
    • References
    • Further reading
    • Acknowledgements
    • Week5Week 5: Conception, generation and sexuality
    • Introduction
    • 1 Births in ancient mythology
    • 1.1 Wind eggs and the uterine mole
    • 1.2 Increasing the chances of conception
    • 1.3 Detecting pregnancy
    • 1.4 Developing in the womb
    • 1.5 The theory of maternal impression
    • 2 Giving birth
    • 2.1 A quick birth?
    • 2.2 Men in the birthing chamber
    • 3 After birth: care of the newborn
    • 3.1 The role of the wet-nurse
    • 3.2 Girls growing up
    • 3.3 Infertility – ex votos of sexual parts
    • 3.4 Being healthy but infertile
    • 4 This week’s quiz
    • Summary
    • References
    • Further reading
    • Acknowledgements
    • Week6Week 6: The ideal body: disability and wounding
    • Introduction
    • 1 Ancient ideals
    • 1.1 Discovering ancient bodies
    • 1.2 Healthy bodies in the ancient world
    • 1.3 Bodies from Roman London
    • 2 The ideal body and the disabled body
    • 2.1 Shaping the body from birth
    • 2.2 Disabled bodies
    • 2.3 The Emperor’s feet
    • 2.4 Other differences
    • 3 Recruiting and treating the soldier
    • 3.1 Training the Roman army
    • 3.2 How healthy were classical Greek armies?
    • 3.3 Treating the injured soldier
    • 3.4 Battle wounds and surgery in art and literature
    • 3.5 Battle wounds and surgery in medical texts and archaeology
    • 3.6 The mental health of ancient soldiers
    • 3.7 Caerleon
    • 3.8 Using texts and objects
    • 4 This week’s quiz
    • Summary
    • Where next?
    • References
    • Further reading
    • Acknowledgements

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