ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Wind, Water, Place, and Time: Epidemics in Ancient India and Greece

• In Event: Pestilence and the Weather: The Environmental Framing of Epidemics in Global Antiquity

English Abstract

In medical traditions that base their theories of disease causation on humoral concepts and lack a notion of contagion, epidemics are difficult to explain. Thus, both the Hippocratic corpus and early Āurvedic compilations contain supplementary discussions on the occurrence of widespread suffering. In a dedicated chapter in one of the foundational works of Āyurveda, the Carakasaṃhitā, such events are first traced back to seasonal deviations that corrupt the soil and plants, causing widespread ailments. Next, in the same chapter, four environmental factors, common to all inhabitants of a region, are identified. If these are in abnormal states, health is at risk. As first observed by Kenneth Zysk, these factors, consisting in wind, water, place, and time, closely resemble the quadruple discussed in the Hippocratic treatise Airs, Waters, Places.

In the proposed paper I will outline the theory of environmental disease causation as set out in the Carakasaṃhitā and compare and contrast it with the concepts found in Airs, Waters, Places. Although hard evidence is lacking, I will evaluate the probability of a direct connection between the two texts. Could Hippocratic treatises have circulated in north-west India at the time the respective chapter of the Carakasaṃhitā was composed? Or is it more likely that the Āyurvedic theory is an independent development? These questions are of great importance for understanding the formation of Āyurveda, as they could mean that we have to rewrite certain chapters of its history.

Author

• Vitus Angermeier, Austrian Academy of Sciences