Includes bibliographical references and index.

Preliminary Material / H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and M. Stol -- Introduction / H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and M. Stol -- West Meets East: Early Greek and Babylonian Diagnosis / M.J. Geller -- An Assyriologist Reads Hippocrates / M. Stol -- Die ‘Lösung vom Bann’: Überlegungen zu altorientalischen Konzeptionen von Krankheit und Heilkunst / S.M. Maul -- Diagnosis, Divination and Disease: Towards an Understanding of the rationale behind the Babylonian Diagnostic Handbook / N.P. Heeßel -- How to Marry a Disease: Epidemics, Contagion, and a Magic Ritual against the ‘Hand of the Ghost’ / W. Farber -- Rationality versus Irrationality in Egyptian Medicine in the Pharaonic and Graeco-Roman Periods / R. David -- Minoan and Mycenaean Medicine and its Near Eastern Contacts / R. Arnott -- Greek Medicine and Babylonian Wisdom: Circulation of Knowledge and Channels of Transmission in the Archaic and Classical Periods / R. Thomas -- Divination, Prognosis and Prophylaxis: The Hippocratic Work ‘On Dreams’ (De Victu 4) and its Near Eastern Background / P.J. van der Eijk -- Structure and Genesis of Some Hippocratic Treatises / V. Langholf -- Aphorismi 5.28–63 and the Gynaecological Texts of the Corpus Hippocraticum / A.E. Hanson -- Bloodletting in Babylonia / M.J. Geller -- Asclepius and Temple Medicine in Aelius Aristides’ Sacred Tales / H.F.J. Horstmanshoff -- Vindicianus’ Gynaecia and Theories on Generation and Embryology from the Babylonians up to Graeco-Roman Times / L. Cilliers -- ‘At times these ancient facts seem to lie before me like a patient on a hospital bed’—Retrospective Diagnosis and Ancient Medical History / K.-H. Leven -- Index Locorum / H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and M. Stol -- Index Nominum et Rerum / H.F.J. Horstmanshoff and M. Stol.

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For the first time, medical systems of the Ancient Near East and the Greek and Roman world are studied side by side and compared. Early medicine in Babylonia, Egypt, the Minoan and Mycenean world; later medicine in Hippocrates, Galen, Aelius Aristides, Vindicianus, the Talmud. The focus is the degree of \'rationality\' or \'irrationality\' in the various ways of medical thought and treatment. Fifteen specialists contributed thoughtful and well-documented chapters on important issues.