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- About the Centre
- Centre staff
- News and events
- Past research projects
- A Case Study of the Influenza Pandemic 1889-1890
- Assessment of Exeter Partnership NHS Trust Records
- Environments, Expertise and Experience
- Health and Masculinity in Post-war Britain
- Health, Heredity and the Environment 1850 - 2000
- Healthcare and Wellbeing: Ancient Paradigms and Modern Debates
- Ischia Summer School on the History of the Life Sciences
- Medical Archive Project
- Medicine and Surgery through Time: Developing Links with Learners
- Medicine, Health and the Arts in Post-War Britain
- Mental Illness and Returning Patient Care in the Early NHS
- One Person's Food is Another's Poison
- Remembering the Mental Hospital
- Retrieving and Preserving Modern Mental Health Records
- Rewriting the System of Nature: Linnaeus's Use of Writing Technologies
- Santorio Santorio and the Emergence of Quantifying Procedures in Medicine at the end of the Renaissance
- The History of Stress
- Postgraduate study in Medical History
- Research projects
- Staff publications
- Useful links
- Wellcome Trust

Wellcome Images
Medical writer Galen
The project includes features of ancient medicine and psychology such as:
- The focus on preventive medicine and life-style management rather than drugs or surgery;
- Philosophical therapy as a 'preventive medicine' against psychological illness;
- The idea that people can be expected to take responsibility for their own healthcare and the search for well-being, healthcare conceived in positive terms (and not just as avoiding illness);
- Healthcare viewed 'holistically', locating human life in the context of nature.
Seminars, workshops and conferences have explored these themes, and established contact with specialists in modern healthcare and psychology. For more on these, visit the Centre for Hellenistic and Romano-Greek Culture and Society Conferences page
Healthcare and Wellbeing stems from the research interests of Professor Christopher Gill in ancient psychology and psychotherapy and Professor John Wilkins in ancient food, nutrition and the role of the doctor in antiquity. A shared focus of their work is Galen, the greatest medical writer in antiquity (2nd century AD).
They are currently planning an interdisciplinary project that will examine the possible significance of ancient ideas and methods for contemporary healthcare, in collaboration with specialists in contemporary medicine and psychology.
To find out more, visit our blog
If you are interested in collaborating in this area, or have an interest in it, then contact the team