#galen

#galen

The mummy was found in a necropolis at the ancient site of Oxyrhynchus, revealing a papyrus fragment of Homer's Iliad, specifically the Index of Ships from Book 2.

The discovery of a few pages from an original edition of Hugo's work would then be a momentous event. This is precisely what specialists in Empedocles are experiencing today.

It started with a book launch in 2021. I'd been living in London as a social media journalist when I asked my then-publication's culture editor to send me to one of these exclusive-sounding events, as 1) I'd never been and 2) I just really wanted to be a person who "has a book launch to go to." Thankfully, there was one that exact day-and he put my name on the list for the release of Mary Beard's Emperor of Rome. Huzzah.

It might sound like an exaggeration, but it's not: beer played an indirect but crucial role in the birth of modern surgery. Not because it held the key to cures, nor because anyone drank it in an operating room, but because it was one of the first products in which science observed something previously invisible. That something germs would forever change how we understand fermentation, food and also human infections.

Medieval medical writers didn't shy away from sexual topics-they offered practical advice, foods to try, and prescriptions meant to boost desire and potency. In one of the Middle Ages' most widely used medical textbooks, the physician Ahmed Ibn al-Jazzar lays out why men might struggle with sexual performance and what could be done about it, from everyday ingredients like chickpeas and turnips to carefully measured electuaries and beverages.