You're Dead to Me – Ancient Greek & Roman Medicine (Radio Edit)

Host: Greg Jenner
Guests: Professor Christy Upson-Saia (Religious Studies, Occidental College), Stu Goldsmith (Comedian)
Release Date: January 14, 2023
Podcast: BBC Radio 4, You’re Dead to Me

Episode Overview

This lively and insightful episode of "You're Dead to Me" explores the world of medicine in Ancient Greece and Rome. Host Greg Jenner is joined by historian Prof. Christy Upson-Saia and comedian Stu Goldsmith to unpick just how the Greeks and Romans understood and treated illness, blending gory medical details with humor and critical historical context. The episode covers the prevalence and causes of illness, the interplay between religion and medicine, the famous Four Humours theory, ancient cures (including bizarre treatments like beaver glands), women's roles in medicine, and the shift to hospitals with the rise of Christianity.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Illness as the Ancient Norm

• Constant Ill Health: Prof. Upson-Saia sets the scene by clarifying that there was a "norm" of being unwell in the ancient world.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 03:45): "When we read Greek and Roman sources, we get the picture that at any given time, nearly everyone had some sort of illness, injury or impairment... People were unwell most of the time, and health was a state they only fleetingly experienced."
• Roman letters (Fronto) often detail fevers, chronic pain, and household sickness.
• Urban Environments: Dense living, poor sanitation, stagnant water — prime environments for infectious diseases.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 05:03): "...air pollution from smoke, from fires, from cooking, or from oil lamps, and even from fecal matter..."

2. Religion and Healing: Asclepius & Incubation

• Healing Temples: Worshippers brought anatomical "votives" (clay models of ailing body parts) to Asclepius temples.
• Dream healing practice called incubation: spend the night in the temple, hope for a healing dream or a dream prescribing a treatment.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 07:11): "Either the God would treat them within the dream and they would wake up healed, or they would receive a dream in which the God prescribed a treatment plan..."
• Temples often incorporated pharmacies, where prescribed treatments from dreams could be purchased.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 08:44): "At the Asclepian temple in Pergamum... it’s lined with these shops or stalls... some of them were pharmacists... they were in cahoots with the priests."

3. The Rise of Professional Medicine

• Hippocrates of Kos: Advocated for natural explanations of illness, shifting away from divine blame.
  • Practiced diagnosis and prognosis, and sampled patients’ bodily fluids to diagnose illness.
  • Quote (Greg Jenner, 09:45): "He drank people's urine, he tasted their earwax and their mucus and nasal phlegm..."
• Resistance: Folk were suspicious of medicine overtaking religion; doctors often blended both.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 10:20): "The other approach is just to fold medicine and religion together... the gods were the ones who showed them the remedies."
• By 46 BCE, Julius Caesar offered Roman citizenship to foreign doctors, signifying growing societal value.

4. The Four Humours & Theories of Disease

• The Four Humours: Blood, phlegm, black bile, yellow bile. Health meant balance; disease, imbalance.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 11:19): "Ancient folks thought that the body was made up of four different: blood, phlegm, black bile and yellow bile."
• Treating Imbalance: Eg. For an excess of phlegm (cold, wet), prescribe hot, dry things: spices, garlic, exercise.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 12:00): "Phlegm is the cold and wet humor... prescribe treatments that counteract those qualities."
• Alternative Theories: Asclepiades argued for an atomistic model — health depended on free movement of body’s 'atoms.'

5. Ancient Cures: Bizarre and Botanical

• Bizarre Treatments: All of the following were genuinely prescribed:
  • Hold a puppy to ailing organs to suck out disease
  • Eat injured human earwax for stings
  • Drink gladiator blood for epilepsy
  • Zap migraines with electric eels or torpedo fish
  • Quote (Greg Jenner, 15:06): "We've screwed you here because they're all true."
• Pharmacology: Plant-based cures were widespread, with over 700 listed in Roman texts. But the Greek word pharmakon meant both "remedy" and "poison" — expertise was essential.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 15:33): "Both drug and poison."
• Drug Trade: Pharmacologists operated in bustling marketplace stalls.

6. Medical Professionalism, Training & Gender

• Medical Training: No official licenses; reputation and word of mouth ruled. Many doctors, including enslaved Greeks, migrated to Rome. Some doctors (e.g. city physicians) had retainers paid by city councils (17:22).
• Surgery: High risk; surgeons were often located near cemeteries.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 18:18): "Most of the time, physicians tried to avoid cutting open their patients. So surgeons were the professional class... it was incredibly risky..."
• Women in Medicine: Women served not just as midwives, but as physicians with classical recognition.
  • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 19:05): "There was a professional class of women healers, healthcare professionals, that were often called midwives or obstetricians... the titles start to be called physicians [using same terms as men]."

7. Women's Health and the Wandering Womb

• Humoral Differences: Men were "hot and dry", women "wet and cold."
• Wandering Womb: Some believed the uterus could "wander" if deprived of moisture, causing illness.
  • Treatments: Sex to "moisten" the womb, or olfactory lures like aromatic herbs placed below, and foul-smelling substances or fumes above to scare it into place.
  • Beaver Bum (Castoreum): Used as a disgusting-tasting encouragement for womb cure; also a source for vanilla flavor!
    • Quote (Prof. Upson-Saia, 22:27): "You would either have the woman inhale foul smelling things... or force her to ingest disgusting drinks like castoreum, which is a substance extracted from beavers. And fun fact, also used in modern vanilla flavorings."

8. Pain Relief & Hospitals

• Painkillers: Mandrake, henbane, opium were known, but rarely anesthetized fully — restraint was common.
• Rise of Hospitals: With Christianity (and Jewish tradition), healthcare shifted from private to communal, charitable institutions — the origins of the hospital as we know it.

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• Stu Goldsmith (04:26): “The idea that the normal state was to be ill means that everybody who created anything... they were writing that stuff whilst weeping and bleeding and pussy and stinking.”
• Greg Jenner (14:04): "Hold a puppy close to that part of their body and the puppy will suck out the disease..." (On bizarre ancient cures)
• Stu Goldsmith (15:08): “Ah, yeah. Okay. Even the puppy.”
• Prof. Upson-Saia (19:05): "...over 50 attestations of women physicians, many of whom rose to prominence..."
• Greg Jenner (23:33): "We've got no real mention here of painkillers or anesthetics. Do we think they had any?"
• Prof. Upson-Saia (25:25 – Nuance Window): "Studying the past is an occasion to practice becoming comfortable with diversity and difference. And this is a skill that is directly transferable to the clinical context... what experts now call culturally competent healthcare."

Important Timestamps

• 03:45 – Normalcy of illness in ancient societies
• 05:29 – Urban living and sanitation issues
• 06:49 – Asclepius temples and dream healing
• 09:45 – Hippocrates, bodily fluids as diagnostic tools
• 11:19 – The Four Humours explained
• 13:05 – Medical debate: Galen vs. Asclepiades (atom theory)
• 14:04 – Quizzing ancient cures (puppies, earwax, eels)
• 15:26 – Pharmacology and the dual nature of drugs
• 16:32 – Medical training and the lack of regulation
• 17:57 – City physicians and Pompeii’s surgeon
• 19:05 – Women as physicians
• 20:46 – The wandering womb & beaver bums (castoreum)
• 23:33 – Painkillers and surgery
• 24:12 – Rise of Christian hospitals
• 25:25 – Nuance Window: Why study ancient medicine?
• 27:32 – Culturally competent healthcare, persuasion in medicine

Conclusion

This episode captures the surprises and strangeness of ancient healthcare, illustrating how ordinary people navigated disease, how healing straddled the religious and scientific, and how both men and women contributed to medical knowledge. The conversation is anchored by poignant moments and zany ancient cures (from puppies to beaver glands), while Prof. Upson-Saia’s "Nuance Window" (25:25) draws lessons on empathy, critical thinking, and cultural competence for modern medicine. Whether you’re a history fan, a medical professional, or just fascinated by the weirdness of the past, this is an illuminating listen.