My definition of health today | |
How the ancient Greeks and Romans might define ‘health’ |
Health, greatest of the blessed gods, may I live with you
For the rest of my life, and may you be a willing inmate of my house.(Ariphron, Hymn to Hygieia, 813)
It is probable that with no aids against bad health, none the less health was generally good because of good habits, which neither indolence nor luxury had vitiated: since it is these two which have afflicted the bodies of men, first in Greece, and later amongst us; and hence this complex Art of Medicine, not needed in former times, nor among other nations even now, scarcely protracts the lives of a few of us to the verge of old age. (Prooemium, 4–5)
I see all men using the nouns hygieia and nosos thus … For they consider the person in whom no activity of any part is impaired ‘to be healthy’, but someone in whom one of them is impaired ‘to be sick’. (On the Therapeutic Method, 22)
I begin by worshipping the gods, and try to conduct myself in such a way that in answer to my prayers I may have health and physical strength, esteem in the city, the affection of my friends, safety with honour in war, and wealth increased by honest means. (Oikonomikos, 11.8)
For if a man has plenty to eat, and works it off properly, I think he both insures his health and adds to his strength. (Oikonomikos, 10.12)
Euthydemus: ‘Well, that’s a simple matter. First health in itself is, I suppose, a good, sickness an evil. Next the various causes of these two conditions—meat, drink, habits—are good or evil according as they promote health or sickness. Socrates: ‘Then health and sickness too must be good when their effect is good, and evil when it is evil.’ Euthydemus: ‘But when can health possibly be the cause of evil, or sickness of good?’ Socrates: ‘In many cases. For instance, a disastrous campaign or a fatal voyage: the able-bodied who go are lost, the weaklings who stay behind are saved’. (Memorabilia, 4.2.31–32)
Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. (World Health Organization, 2006)
Until recently, Diaulus was a doctor; now he is an undertaker. He is still doing as an undertaker what he used to do as a doctor. (Epigrams, 1.47)
You are now a gladiator, although until recently you were an ophthalmologist. You did the same thing as a doctor that you do now as a gladiator. (Epigrams, 8.74)
They consider a pulse that is not large to be large, or sometimes one that is not swift to be swift, or one that is not slow to be slow. (Galen, On Prognosis, 14)
Erasistratus, a son of the daughter of Aristotle: for curing King Antiochus he received a hundred talents from King Ptolemy, his son … men like Cassius, Calpetanus, Arruntius and Rubrius: two hundred and fifty thousand sesterces were their annual incomes from the Emperors. (Natural History, 29.5–7)
Three doctors had already examined him at dawn and at the eighth hour; they had taken his pulse; and they agreed that this was apparently the opening of an attack of an illness. When I stood by in silence, the emperor looked at me and asked why, when the others had taken his pulse, I alone had not done so. I replied that since they had already done so twice and the peculiarities of his pulse were probably known to them through their experiences on their travels abroad with him, I expected that they could obtain a better diagnosis of his present condition than I. On hearing this, he commanded me to take his pulse. It seemed to me that his pulse, compared with the general norm for each age and constitution, was far from showing the onset of an attack of an illness, and so I said that there was no attack of fever, but his stomach was overloaded with the food he had taken, which had turned to phlegm before excretion, and that this was now quite clear. (Galen, Prognosis 2)
We do not even now distinguish with our eyes the things we see; for there is no perception in the body, but, as is taught not only by natural philosophers but also by the experts of medicine, who have seen the proofs openly disclosed, there are, as it were, passages bored from the seat of the soul to eye and ear and nose. Often, therefore, we are hindered by absorption in thought or by some attack of sickness, and though eyes and ears are open and uninjured, we neither see nor hear, so that it can be readily understood that it is the soul which both sees and hears, and not those parts of us which serve as windows to the soul, and yet the mind can perceive nothing through them, unless it is active and attentive. What of the fact that by using the same mind we have perception of things so utterly unlike as colour, taste, heat, smell, sound? These the soul would never have ascertained by its five messengers, unless it had been sole court of appeal and only judge of everything. (Tusculan Disputations, 1.20)
C]. Minicius Italus to Celanus, Greetings
… Copy of a release dated and signed in the 12th year of Tiberius Claudius
Caesar Augustus Germanicus Imperator, Pharmouthi
Discharged by Gnaeus Valerius Capito, praefect of upper and lower Egypt, to
Tryphon, son of Dionysus, weaver, with weak sight owing to a cataract
Of the metropolis of Oxyrhynchus.
The examination was conducted in Alexandria
The examination was conducted in Alexandria
The examination was conducted in Alexandria
My sight is weakened, I am constantly blinking, my eyes are watering: I need an eye salve. I need a disciple of Asclepius, some oculist to make up a remedy to take away the redness from my eyes, clear their bleariness and stop their running. (Lucian, Lexiphanes, 4)
When hawks have eye trouble they immediately find some crumbling stone wall and dig up the wild lettuce that grows along it, then hold it above their eyes while the bitter juice runs into them. This restores their vision. Doctors, I hear, also use this remedy on patients who are having eye trouble, and the remedy takes its name from the bird, ‘hawk medicine’. (Aelian, On Animals, 2.43)
Elaterium promotes menstruation but causes abortion when taken by women with child. It is good for asthma and also for jaundice when injected into the nostrils. Smeared in the sunshine on the face, it removes freckles and spots.
her face was made up: she had rubbed in a lot of white lead in order to look even whiter than she is, and alkanet juice to make her cheeks rosier than they truly were. (Xenophon, Oeconomicus, 10.2)
please assume, wife, that I do not prefer white paint and alkanet dye to your real color; but just as the gods have made horses delight in horses, cattle in cattle, sheep in sheep, so human beings find the human body undisguised most delightful. … people who live together are bound to be found out if they try to deceive one another … when they’re just out of bed and not yet dressed, or they perspire and are lost, or a tear convicts them, or the bath reveals them as they truly are! (Xenophon, Oeconomicus, 10.7-9)
Wouldn’t you know, she gave up such practices from that day forward, and tried to let me see her unadorned and as she should be. Still, she did ask whether I could advise her on one point: how she might make herself really beautiful instead of merely seeming to be … it was excellent exercise to mix flour and knead dough; and to shake and fold clothing and linens; such exercise would give her a better appetite, improve her health, and add natural colour to her complexion. (Xenophon, Oeconomicus, 10.9-11)
They’re surrounded by old women and a throng of maids as ugly as themselves who doctor their ill-favoured faces with an assortment of medicaments. … numerous concoctions of scented powders are used to brighten up their unattractive complexions.
I hold that not even the mode of living and nourishment enjoyed at the present time by men in health would have been discovered, had a man been satisfied with the same food and drink as satisfy an ox, a horse, and every animal save man, for example the products of the earth—fruits, wood and grass. (Hippocrates, Ancient Medicine, 3)
nobody will suppose that bread represents a kind of meeting-place for bone, flesh, nerve, and all the other parts, and that each of these subsequently becomes separated in the body and goes to join its own kind; before any separation takes place, the whole of the bread obviously becomes blood. (Galen, On the Natural Faculties, 1.2.6)
And if one considers along with this the adjacent viscera, like a lot of burning hearths around a great cauldron—to the right the liver, to the left the spleen, the heart above, and along with it the diaphragm (suspended and in a state of constant movement), and the omentum sheltering them all—you may believe what an extraordinary alteration it is which occurs in the food taken into the stomach. (Galen, On the Natural Faculties, 3.7.164)
Running swiftly has already killed many, when they rupture an important blood vessel … vigorous horse riding has caused rupture of those structures in relation to kidneys, and has often harmed structures in the chest, and sometimes also the spermatic ducts. (Galen, On exercise with a Small Ball, 5)
It is not good indeed to overeat after a long fast, nor to fast after overeating. And he runs a risk who goes contrary to his habit and eats immoderately whether once or twice in the day. (Celsus, On Medicine, 1.3.2)
You can drink here for one as, if you give two, you will drink better, if you give four, you will drink Falernian. CIL 4.1679 (House VII.ii.45)
The citron has three parts, the acid part in the middle, the flesh, so to speak, that surrounds this, and the third part, the external covering lying around it. This fruit is fragrant and aromatic, not only to smell, but also to taste. As might be expected, it is difficult to digest since it is hard and knobbly. But if one uses it as a medicament it helps concoction, as do many other things with a bitter quality. For the same reason it also strengthens the oesophagus when a small quantity is taken. (Galen, Properties of Foodstuffs, 2.37)
It is also probable that the order and rearrangement of foods makes a considerable difference; for the ‘cold course,’ as it used to be called, with oysters, sea-urchins, and raw vegetables, has like a body of light-armed troops been shifted from the rear to the front, and holds first place instead of last. The serving of the so-called aperitifs is a great change too. The ancients did not even drink water before the dessert course, but nowadays people get themselves intoxicated before eating a thing, and take food after their bodies are soaked and feverish with wine, serving hors-d’oeuvre of light and sharp-flavoured and sour foods as a stimulant to the appetite and then, in this condition, eating heartily of the rest of the meal. (Plutarch,Moralia, 733f-734a)
Sweet apples are indigestible, but acid apples when ripe are less so. Quinces are astringent, and do not pass easily by stool. Apple juice stops vomiting and promotes urine. The smell too of apples is good for vomiting. Wild apples are astringent, but when cooked they pass more easily by stool. For orthopnea their juice, and the apples themselves when a draught is made of them, are beneficial.
Now after putting the newborn to bed subsequent to the swaddling, one must let it rest and, in most cases, abstain from all food up to as long as two days. For it is still violently upset in all parts and its whole body is yet full of maternal food which it ought to digest first, so as at the proper time to take other food readily. (Soranus, Gynecology, 2.17)
unwholesome, being thick, too cheese-like, and therefore hard to digest, raw, and not prepared to perfection. Furthermore, it is produced by bodies which are in a bad state, agitated and changed to the extent that we see the body altered after delivery when, from having suffered a great discharge of blood, it is dried up, toneless, discoloured, and in the majority of cases feverish as well. (Soranus, Gynecology, 2.18)
The milk of a woman is extremely sweet and nutritive. Suckled it helps against gnawing of the belly and phthisis [a type of wasting disease]. It is also good to give against poisoning with sea-hare. Mixed with powdered frankincense, it is instilled in eyes that are bloody because of a blow; and applied as a cerate [an oily preparation] with hemlock, it helps those affected with gout. (Dioscorides, De materia medica 2.70.6)
Danger lurks in the narrow, hard-to-clean neck of Baby’s Bottle. A million babies died in this country in the last three years. Safe milk would have saved thousands if the nursing bottles had also been safe. A narrow-neck nursing bottle is not safe. Even boiling to sterilize cannot make it completely safe, for the narrow neck chokes free circulation of water. Your baby in its first year feeds 2000 times. Dare you risk the bottle being imperfectly cleaned – and baby sick – even once? The wide-mouthed Hygeia Nursing Bottle is always safe – it has no place for food particles or germs to collect. Easy to cleanse as a tumbler. The rubber Hygeia Breast is nearest like a mother’s breast and aids nursing. There is a rubber cover that snaps over the bottle to protect food while in ice box. Be safe – not sorry. First made by a physician to save his own child. Insist on Hygeia, the Nursing Bottle with breasts of red or black rubber. All drug stores.
It can be mixed with liquid drugs and it brings aid to the wounded. In daily intercourse, to those who mix and drink it moderately, it gives good cheer. (Mnesitheus, cited in Athenaeus, Sophists at Dinner, 2.36a-b)
Of all wines the red and thick are most suited for the production of blood, because they require little change before turning into it. (Galen, Properties of Foodstuffs, 2.37)
So at Heraclea in Arcadia they say there is a wine that makes men who drink it mad, and women sterile. (Theophrastus, cited in Dalby, 2000)
When the mighty king Mithridates had been overcome, Cn. Pompeius found in a private note-book in his cabinet a prescription for an antidote written in the king’s own hand-writing: two dried nuts, two figs, and twenty leaves of rue were to be pounded together with the addition of a pinch of salt; he who took this fasting would be immune to all poison for that day. (Pliny, Natural History, 23.149)
It would not be difficult to indicate the way in which the residue of the food is excreted by the alternate constriction and relaxation of the bowels; however this topic must be passed over lest my discourse should be somewhat offensive. (2.55.135)
And just as architects relegate the drains of houses to the rear, away from the eyes and nose of the masters, since otherwise they would inevitably be somewhat offensive, so nature has banished the corresponding organs of the body far away from the neighbourhood of the senses. (2.56.141)
You read to me as I stand, you read to me as I sit,
You read to me as I run, you read to me as I shit.(Martial, 3.44)
Vacerra spends hours in all the privies, sitting all day long.
Vacerra doesn’t want a shit, he wants a dinner.(Martial, 11.77)
eggshell fragments, poppy and fig seeds, olive pits, fish bones and scales, pig, sheep and bird bones, with a particular emphasis on chicken bones. More exotic offerings were represented by sea urchin spines and shells. Carmardo, D. et al. (2010)
The orchards, too, and the gardens should be fenced all around and should lie close by, in a place to which there may flow all manure-laden sewage from barnyard and baths, and the watery lees squeezed from olives; for both vegetables and trees thrive on nutriment of this sort too. (De re rustica, 1.6.24)
Throughout the length of this, however, there runs what is called a stream, but is in fact a filthy sewer, a disgusting eyesore which gives off a noxious stench. The health (salubritas) and appearance alike of the city will benefit if it is covered in, and with your permission this shall be done. I will see that money is not lacking for a large-scale work of such importance. (Letters, 10.98-99)
May I perish if silence is as necessary as it seems for a man who has withdrawn to study. Listen, on all sides noises of every sort resound about me. I am living right above a public bath. Imagine now every sort of voice which can sicken the ears. When strong men train and lift dumb-bells, when they are in pain or pretend they are, I hear groans; whenever they let out their breath I hear whistling and laboured gasping. When I chance upon some lazy fellow who is happy with a cheap rub-down, I hear the slap of a hand laid on his shoulders, which makes different sounds depending on whether it is flat or hollow. If the scorer turns up and begins to count the balls, I am done for. Add now the man kicking up a row and the thief who is caught and the man who thinks he sounds good singing in the bath, add those who jump into the pool with an enormous splash. Besides those whose voices are, if nothing else, at least natural, think of the hair-plucker repeatedly calling out in his thin and high-pitched voice to attract customers, who never shuts up except when he is pulling hairs out of armpits and makes someone else shout out instead of him. Think of the different shouts of the drinks-seller and the sausage-seller and the pastry-seller and all the cook-shop hawkers selling their wares, each with his own personal cry. (Letters, 56.1–2, cited in Shelton, 1988)
Moreover, the patient who is robust, if the pustules are small, ought to go to the bath and sweat, and at the same time to dust the pustules with soda and to mix wine with oil and anoint himself, after which he goes down into the hot bath. (Celsus1, 5.15)
If any dung should be inclined to fall down upon this place, it should be warned not to lie there. If anyone provides intelligence contrary to this, freeborn are to pay a fine of (?), slaves are to be punished by being beaten on their behinds. (Cooley and Cooley, 2014)
Each person’s own urine, if it be proper for me to say so, does him the most good, if a dog-bite is immediately bathed in it, if it is applied on a sponge or wool to the quills of an urchin that are sticking in the flesh, or if ash kneaded with it is used to treat the bite of a mad dog, or a serpent’s bite. (Pliny, Natural History, 28.18.67)
cow’s dung, bull’s gall, myrrh, alum, all-heal juice, and anything else that is similar – apply a great amount of these, and evacuate downwards with laxative medications that do not provoke vomiting and are mild, in order that purging does not become excessive. (Hippocrates, Places in Man, 47)
Emetics and clysters for the bowels should be used thus. Use emetics during the six winter months, for this period engenders more phlegm than does the summer, and in it occur the diseases that attack the head and the region above the diaphragm. But when the weather is hot use clysters, for the season is burning, the body bilious, heaviness is felt in the loins and knees, feverishness comes on and colic in the belly. So the body must be cooled, and the humours that rise must be drawn downwards from these regions. For people inclined to fatness and moistness let the clysters be rather salt and thin; for those inclined to dryness, leanness and weakness let them be rather greasy and thick. Greasy, thick clysters are prepared from milk, or water boiled with chick-peas or similar things. Thin, salt clysters are made of things like brine and sea-water. Emetics should be employed thus. Men who are fat and not thin should take an emetic fasting after running or walking quickly in the middle of the day. Let the emetic consist of half a cotyle of hyssop (a herb from the mint family) compounded with a chous of water, and let the patient drink this, pouring in vinegar and adding salt, in such a way as to make the mixture as agreeable as possible. (Regimen in Health, 5, Loeb translation)
A vomit is more advantageous in winter than in summer, for then more phlegm and severer stuffiness in the head occur. It is unsuitable for the thin and for those with a weak stomach, but suitable for the plethoric, and all who have become bilious, whether after overeating or imperfect digestion. For if the meal has been larger than can be digested, it is not well to risk its corruption; and if it has already become corrupted, nothing is more to the purpose than to eject it by whatever way its expulsion is first possible. When, therefore, there are bitter eructations, with pain and weight over the heart, recourse should be had at once to a vomit, which is likewise of service to anyone who has heartburn and copious salivation or nausea, or ringing in the ears, or watering of the eyes, or a bitter taste in the mouth; similarly in the case of one who is making a change of climate or locality; as well as in the case of those who become troubled by pain over the heart when they have not vomited for several days. Nor am I unaware that in such cases there is prescribed rest, but that is not always within the reach of those who are obliged to be busy; nor does rest act in the same way with everybody. Accordingly I allow that vomiting should not be practised for the sake of luxury; on account of health I believe from experiment that it is sometimes rightly practised, nevertheless with this reservation, that no one who wants to keep well, and live to old age, should make it a daily habit. He who after a meal wants to vomit, if he does so easily should first take tepid water by itself; when there is more difficulty, a little salt or honey should be added. To cause a vomit on getting up in the morning, he should first drink some honey or hyssop in wine, or eat a radish, and after that drink tepid water as described above. The other emetics prescribed by the ancient practitioners all disturb the stomach. After a vomit, when the stomach is weak, a little suitable food should be taken, and for drink, unless the vomiting has made the throat raw, three cupfuls of cold water. He who has provoked a vomit, if it be early in the day, should after that take a walk, next undergo anointing, then dine; if after dining, he should the next day bathe, or sweat in the baths.
The so-called ‘mother’ is not a parent of the child, only the nurse of the newly-begotten embryo. The parent is he who mounts; the female keeps the offspring safe, like a stranger on behalf of a stranger, for those in whose case this is not prevented by god. I shall give you powerful proof of this statement. A father can procreate without a mother: a witness to this is here close by us [indicating Athene], the daughter of Olympian Zeus, who was not even nurtured in the darkness of a womb, but is such an offspring as no female divinity could ever bring forth. (Aeschylus, Eumenides, 658–65)
mares when a west wind is blowing stand facing towards it and conceive the breath of life and … this produces a foal, and this is the way to breed a very swift colt, but it does not live more than three years. (Pliny the Elder, Natural History, 8.67)
It is said that no woman ever produced a child without the co-operation of a man, yet there are misshapen, fleshlike, uterine growths originating in some infection, which develop of themselves and acquire firmness and solidity, and are commonly called ‘moles’. Great care must be taken that this sort of thing does not take place in women’s minds. For if they do not receive the seed of good doctrines and share with their husbands in intellectual advancement, they, left to themselves, conceive many untoward ideas and low designs and emotions. (Plutarch, Advice to the Bride and Groom, 145d–e)
It is thought that conception is aided by cucumber seed if a woman keeps it fastened to her body without its having touched the ground; while labour is easier if, without her knowledge, the seed, wrapped in ram’s wool, be tied to her loins; but it must be hastily carried out of the house immediately after delivery. (Pliny, Natural History, 20.3.6-7)
When a man wants to produce [literally: to grow] a male child, he should have sexual intercourse towards the end of the woman’s period or when they have just ended, and he should thrust as hard as possible until he ejaculates; when he wants to produce a girl, he should have intercourse when the woman’s periods are the strongest, or at least when they are still flowing, and tie his right testicle as much as he can bear. If he wants to produce a male, he should tie the left testicle. (On Superfetation, 31)
Pregnant women who have spots on their face are carrying a female, whereas those who retain their good complexion are generally carrying a male. If the nipples turn upwards, a woman is carrying a male, whereas if they turn downwards, a female. (OnBarrenness, 4)
When some disease befalls the moisture from which the sperm is formed, the four kinds of substances that are naturally present in this part do not produce a complete seed, but one weaker to the degree that it is maimed; thus it does not seem any wonder to me that this offspring is maimed like its parent. (On Generation, 11)
Now as a fetus arrives at the onset of its final formation, it matures and gains much strength in the process, more than at any other time; the membranes in which it is nourished in the beginning become loose, just the way that ears of grain do when they are stretched before their fruit has reached its complete maturity. (Eight Months’ Child, 1)
All things being equal, it is best to feed the infant with mother’s milk. For it is most suited to him and the mothers become more sensitive towards their offspring, and it is more natural to be fed by the mother after the birth, as it is before the birth. But if anything prevents this, one must choose the best nurse, lest the mother grow old because of the suckling that takes up every day. (Gynecology, 2.18)
What the mischief, then, is the reason for corrupting the nobility of body and mind of a newly born human being, formed from gifted seeds, by the alien and degenerate nourishment of another’s milk? Especially if she whom you employ to furnish the milk is either a slave or of servile origin and, as usually happens, of a foreign and barbarous nation, if she is dishonest, ugly, unchaste and a wine-bibber; for as a rule anyone who has milk at the time is employed and no distinction made. (Favorinus in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, 12.1.17)
One should choose a wet nurse not younger than twenty nor older than forty years, who has already given birth twice or three times, who is healthy, of good habits, or large frame, and of a good colour. Her breasts should be of medium size, lax, soft and unwrinkled, the nipples neither big nor too small and neither too compact nor too porous and discharging milk over-abundantly. She should be self-controlled, sympathetic and not ill-tempered, a Greek, and tidy. (Soranus, Gynecology, 2.19)
This is the number and kind (of causes) in women that prevent them from giving birth, until they are healed, and through which they become completely infertile: therefore, there is no need to be surprised that there are often women who fail to give birth. (Barrenness, 1)
If a woman’s menses do not flow where they should, but start down into her rectum, in this case too she does not become pregnant … If the mouth of a woman’s uterus has turned toward her rectum or has closed, on being treated she recovers her fertility. (Barrenness, 1)
Now if the menses which have become full of pus do not go down through the vagina, they are likely to burst forth above the groin down along her flank without swelling … In these cases the woman does not usually survive. But even if she should survive she will always be infertile. (Diseases of Women, 1.2)
Ashes were already falling, not as yet very thickly. I looked round: a dense black cloud was coming up behind us, spreading over the earth like a flood. ‘Let us leave the road while we can still see,’ I said, ‘or we shall be knocked down and trampled underfoot in the dark by the crowd behind.’ We had scarcely sat down to rest when darkness fell, not the dark of a moonless or cloudy night, but as if the lamp had been put out in a closed room. You could hear the shrieks of women, the wailing of infants, and the shouting of men; some were calling their parents, others their children or their wives, trying to recognize them by their voices. (Pliny the Younger, Letters, 6.20.13–14)
Holding a newborn baby votive. Cradling it along one arm, its length matches my forearm, head cradled in the crook of my right elbow, feet resting in my right hand. I gently rock it. The weight is comparable to a new baby. But it is very cold to the touch because it’s kept in a [temperature controlled] cool storeroom. If it was in a sanctuary in Paestum, in the sunshine, the terracotta would be warm to the touch – blood temperature maybe? Feeling like the warm skin of a real baby? And if it was wrapped in swaddling bands it would be warm and soft and would smell of my own baby. Or maybe it doesn’t wear real swaddling bands because maybe it is apotropaic, a terracotta dissonant imitation of the baby I want so desperately. Am I trying to warm it up when I rock it? Or am I wistfully wishing it was my real baby? I feel a sense of attachment to it, an attachment which grows as I cradle and rock it. I don’t want to put it down. It is difficult to put it down. (The Votives Project, 2015)
One must mould every part according to its natural shape, and if something has been twisted during the time of delivery, one must correct it and bring it into its natural shape … . The midwife should put the newborn down gently on her lap which has been covered entirely with wool or with a piece of cloth so that the infant may not cool down when laid bare while every part is swaddled. Then she must take soft woollen bandages which are clean and not too worn out, some of them three fingers in breadth, others four fingers … in order that the former may fit the limbs, the latter the thorax. (Soranus, Gynecology, 2.14)
She should then wrap one of the broader bandages circularly around the thorax, exerting an even pressure when swaddling males, but in females binding the parts at the breasts more tightly, yet keeping the region of the loins loose, for in women this form is more becoming. (Soranus, Gynecology, 2.15)
Speaking generally, unless the menstrual discharge is suspended, women are not troubled by haemorrhoids or bleeding from the nose or any other such discharge, and if it happens that they are, then the evacuations fall off in quantity, which suggests that the substance secreted is being drawn off to the other discharges. Again, their blood vessels are not so prominent as those of males; and females are more neatly made and smoother than males, because the residue which goes to produce those characteristics in males is in females discharged together with the menstrual fluid. (Aristotle, On the Generation of Animals, 727a)
Sergius in his second campaign lost his right hand; in two campaigns he was wounded twenty-three times, with the result that he was crippled in both hands and both feet, only his spirit being intact; yet although debilis, he served in numerous subsequent campaigns … . He fought four times with only his left hand, having two horses he was riding stabbed under him. He had a right hand of iron made for him and going into action with it tied to his arm, raised the siege of Cremona, saved Piacenza, captured twelve enemy camps in Gaul: all of which exploits are testified by his speech delivered during his praetorship when his colleagues wanted to debar him from the sacrifices as debilis. (Pliny, Natural History, 7.104–5)
Crippled and deformed in every limb, he could only enjoy his vast wealth by contemplating it, and could not even turn in bed without assistance. He also had to have his teeth cleaned and brushed for him—a squalid and pitiful detail. (Letters, 8.18)
Hera was angry and spoke thus among the assembled gods: ‘… See now, apart from me he [Zeus] has given birth to bright-eyed Athene who is foremost among all the blessed gods. But my son Hephaistos to whom I gave birth was weakly among all the blessed gods and shrivelled of foot, a shame and a disgrace to me in heaven, whom I myself took in my hands and cast out so that he fell in the great sea’. (Homeric Hymn 3 to Pythian Apollo, 310 ff (trans. Evelyn-White))