OXFORD, Miss. – An expert on ancient Greek and Roman medicine and medical instruments will discuss the various types of instruments that date back to antiquity and how they were used in treating wounds and ailments during a public lecture Monday (Nov. 7) at the University of Mississippi.
Lawrence J. Bliquez, professor emeritus of classics and art history at the University of Washington, will present “The Tools of Asclepius: Surgical Instruments in Greek and Roman Times” at 4:30 p.m. in the University Museum Speakers Gallery. The lecture is free and open to the public.
Bliquez has studied and published on ancient medical instruments in a variety of collections, including several ancient medical instruments in the University Museum’s collection, as well as the most important collection of such instruments in the world, at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples, Italy, which holds the finds from Pompeii and Herculaneum.
“By blending the skills of an archaeologist and a modern pathologist, Dr. Bliquez will illustrate how these ancient Greco-Roman medical instruments and methods, and their descendants – which very often look exactly like their ancient exemplars, only shinier – have been wielded through the millennia to help manage the challenges of the mortal condition, since the times of Hippocrates and Galen,” said Brad Cook, UM assistant professor of classics, who arranged the lecture.
The museum’s collection of Roman medical tools will be on display for the lecture.
For more information on the Department of Classics, go to http://classics.olemiss.edu/.
(staff report)