The recurring problems of eye-disease in Egypt account for the importance that ophthalmology has always had in this country. Eye-diseases and their treatment in Greco-Roman Egypt are documented by a remarkable but insufficiently known body of material: Greek literary papyri, which are often the only witnesses to lost medical works and which provide evidence of original theories, practices and terminology.
The first part of this book provides an introduction to ancient ophthalmology, to the medical literature of Greco-Roman Egypt and to Greek medical papyri. The second part presents a critical edition (with a French translation and commentary) of the papyri with theoretical expositions, and a chapter on ophthalmic recipes.
"The specialist will gain considerable benefit from this scholarly work, and those who want to know something about ancient ophtalmology would do far worse than begin here." - in: Medical History, 1995
"...fascinating and well documented book...The reconstruction of these papyrii is a very valuable contribution to ophthalmic history which is enhanced by the clarity of the exposition and the detail of the presentation." - V.J. Marmion, in: Archives Internationales d'Histoire des Sciences, 1998
Classical philologists, papyrologists, Egyptologists, historians of medicine, and ophthalmologists interested in the history of their own discipline.