Abstract
Investigation on the nature, availability, and medical effectiveness of Hippocratic cataplasms potentially used in the treatment of head trauma of Eleuthernian warriors and elsewhere in ancient Greece. Agelarakis Argiro, and Anagnostis P. Agelarakis This presentation reflects on an archaeo-anthropological undertaking which integrating domain components of the history of medicine, palaeopathology, and ethnobotany aimed to investigate through archaeometry aspects of the cataplasm potency in the medical treatment of head trauma as instructed in the chapter “On Head Wounds” of the 3rd Book on Surgery of the Hippocratic corpus, and further to examine the likelihood that traces of such medical applications could have been retained through time, ingrained in the fabric of ethnomedical traditions in Greece. The impetus for this research project had been provided by the discovery of an adequate number of paleopathological cases of compressed cranial vault trauma which apparently sustained in polemic engagements, based on forensic anthropological assessments, had been treated surgically following a consistent pattern of medical intervention, and successively healed ante mortem. Those manifestations had been primarily documented during the bioarchaeological analyses of cremains among the warrior order of Eleutherna interred in the monumental tomb A1K1 of Orthi Petra (8th-7th c. BC), and in subsequent projects among warriors interred in both the Parian Polyandreia (8th c. BC) and the Athenian Polyandreia of Demosion Sema (5th c. BC). A synthesis of palaeopathological, medical anthropological and experimental archaeometric investigations clearly confirmed the potent ability of the Hippocratic cataplasm to deter and protect from secondary infectious complications which could have been caused through contaminations by exogenous pathogens at the juncture on trauma impact and throughout the operative and healing regimen stages of medical intervention. Further, ethnographic research conducted elucidated a continued use of the remedy within extant ethnomedical practices, pre- and postdating the availability of modern antibiotics, given its hypoallergenic nature and lack of side effects, the availability of its elemental constituents and ease of preparation and malleability of its viscosity for external, respiratory, or internal applications, and last but not least for its significant score of healing effectiveness. It is in light of the above that it is suggested the Hippocratic cataplasm would have been known and readily used in the medico-surgical treatment and healing regimen of head wounds of the Eleuthernian warriors involved as elsewhere in the ancient Hellenic world.