Volume 167, 5 June 2015, Pages 7–10
Potent Substances: On the Boundaries of Food and Medicine
Abstract
Ethnopharmacological relevance
This
paper speaks to the theme of the boundaries of food and medicine as
constructed in the Greek and Roman worlds. It examines how physicians
developed innovative ways of thinking about the body that did not
attribute health and sickness to the intervention of gods. Ancient
physicians and natural historians conceived of new potencies for
substances and described their impact on the body׳s physiology between
the late fifth century BC and the early third century AD. The legacy of
these ideas and practices had great traction in the Mediterranean world
and survived into Early Modern Times, and until the rise of new forms of
science.
Materials and methods
This
article analyses texts transmitted from the ancient world and considers
how substances were attributed nutritional and medical potency. The
texts relevant to this analysis include medical and philosophical
treatises as well as cookery books. The article highlights discussions
about the nature of food and drugs and the herbs thought to cross the
boundaries between them. It interrogates different contexts within which
foods were thought good or bad for the body, and the social and moral
connotations attached to those perceptions.
Conclusion
Much
of the analysis is devoted to understanding the flavours that were a
key marker in the nutritional potencies attributed to foodstuffs.
However there are clear and influential moral boundaries set by Plato in
the discourse around food and pleasure. While every physician should be
a chef, and many wrote cookery books that have been lost, a chef׳s
talent was located in increasing pleasure, and therefore a less valuable
skill. However the different literary genres show overlapping
terminology and concerns, particularly with the quality of ingredients.
Poor taste was not only a culinary concern. With regard to the setting
of boundaries between foods and medicines, the transition between one
category and another is frequently determined by the preparation and
strengthening of a food׳s potency.
Graphical abstract
Keywords
- History;
- Food;
- Medicine;
- Antiquity;
- Galen;
- Spices
Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.
