Overview

My main interests lie in Graeco-Roman medicine, especially of the Hellenistic and Roman periods. One important strand of my research looks at the ways in which medicine and philosophy interacted and influenced each other. I also have continuing interests in how Greek papyri from Ptolemaic and Roman Egypt can contribute to our understanding of ancient medicine.

Most recently, I have been working on the Greek physician Asclepiades of Bithynia, the first major medical authority to be based in Rome, around the end of the second and the early first centuries BC. He played an important role in giving Greek medicine an intellectual and cultural respectability in its new Roman context, but he is also of interest for his deep engagement with Hellenistic philosophy, in particular Epicurean atomism, which he adopted, but also deliberately modified, in developing his own theory of human physiology and pathology.

My current project at Exeter will continue work on Asclepiades, but will also focus on two earlier medical authorities, Herophilus of Chalcedon and Erasistratus of Ceos, who were both allowed to dissect and even vivisect human beings in Alexandria in the early third century BC. One of Herophilus’ most notable achievements was his identification of the nervous system and his discovery of its function in mediating sensation and voluntary motion, and Erasistratus continued and further elaborated on his research. Their work is now regarded as having established, for the first time on something like a ‘scientific’ basis, the brain as the seat of the mind. Asclepiades then went beyond these physicians in developing a comprehensive and coherent theory of mind. I aim to examine the contributions made by these three Hellenistic doctors to ancient theories of the soul and how it interacts with the body, and to understand more clearly the ways in which they were influenced by, and influenced in turn, contemporary philosophers.

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Publications

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| 2023 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2012 | 2010 | 2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 |

2023

• Leith D. (2023) Medicine, The Oxford Handbook of Roman Philosophy, Oxford University Press, 379-396, DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199328383.013.22.
• Leith D. (2023) Medicine and Atomism: Asclepiades of Bithynia and Epicurean Science, Epicureanism and Scientific Debates. Vol. I: Language, Medicine, Meteorology, Leuven University Press, 167-186.

2021

• Leith D. (2021) Holism and the Methodists, Holism in Ancient Medicine and Its Reception, Brill, 133-153.
• Leith D. (2021) Brain, A Cultural History of Medicine in Antiquity, Bloomsbury Academic, 165-187.
• Leith D. (2021) Asclepiades of Bithynia as Hippocratic Commentator, Hippocratic Commentaries in the Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic Traditions: Selected Papers from the XVth Colloque Hippocratique, Manchester, Brill, 28-50.

2020

• Leith D. (2020) The Pneumatic Theories of Erasistratus and Asclepiades, The Concept of Pneuma after Aristotle, Edition Topoi, 131-156.
• Leith D, Lewis O. (2020) Ideas of Pneuma in Early Hellenistic Writers, The Concept of Pneuma after Aristotle, Edition Topoi, 93-129.
• Leith D, Coughlin S, Lewis O. (2020) The Concept of Pneuma after Aristotle, Edition Topoi, DOI:10.17171/3-61.
• Leith D, Coughlin S, Lewis O. (2020) The Concept of Pneuma after Aristotle, Edition Topoi, DOI:10.17171/3-61.
• Leith D. (2020) Notes on Three Asclepiadean Doctors, Medicine and Markets. Essays on Ancient Medicine in Honour of Vivian Nutton, Classical Press of Wales.
• Leith DB. (2020) Herophilus and Erasistratus on the Hēgemonikon, Body and Soul in Hellenistic Philosophy. Proceedings of the 2016 Symposium Hellenisticum, Cambridge University Press, 30-61, DOI:10.1017/9781108641487.003.

2019

• Leith D. (2019) Asclepiades' Therapeutics in the Elder Pliny, Technai, pages 69-89.

2017

• Leith DB. (2017) The Hippocratic Oath in Roman Oxyrhynchus, En marge du Serment hippocratique. Contrats et serments dans le monde gréco-romaine, 39-50.

2016

• Leith DB. (2016) Review of: P.N. Singer (ed.), Galen: Psychological Writings. Cambridge 2013, Classical Review, volume 66, pages 381-383, DOI:10.1017/S0009840X16000561.
• Leith DB. (2016) How Popular Were the Medical Sects?, Popular Medicine in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Explorations, Brill, 231-250.

2015

• Leith DB. (2015) Elements and Uniform Parts in Early Alexandrian Medicine, Phronesis: a journal for ancient philosophy, volume 60, no. 4, pages 462-491, DOI:10.1163/15685284-12341293.
• Leith D. (2015) Erasistratus’ Triplokia of Arteries, Veins and Nerves, Apeiron, volume 48, no. 3, pages 251-262, DOI:10.1515/apeiron-2014-0025.
• Hirt M, Leith D, Henry WB. (2015) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume LXXX, The Egypt Exploration Society.
• Leith D. (2015) Review of: A. Falcon, Aristotelianism in the First Century BCE: Xenarchus of Seleucia. Cambridge, 2012, ISIS, volume 106, no. 1, pages 169-170, DOI:10.1086/681836. [PDF]
• Leith DB. (2015) Surgical Treatise, Texts from the "Archive" of Socrates, the Tax Collector, and Other Contexts at Karanis (P. Mich. Cair. II), De Gruyter.
• Leith DB. (2015) Epictetus, Discourses 4.1.136-138, Texts from the "Archive" of Socrates, the Tax Collector, and Other Contexts at Karanis (P. Cair. Mich. II), De Gruyter.

2014

• Leith DB. (2014) Review of: D. Manetti (ed.), Anonymus Londiniensis, De medicina. Berlin/New York, 2011, Gnomon: kritische Zeitschrift fuer die gesamte klassische Altertumswissenschaft, volume 86, pages 592-595.
• Leith DB. (2014) Galen's Refutation of Atomism, Philosophical Themes in Galen, 213-234.
• Leith DB. (2014) Causing Doubts: Diodorus Cronus and Herophilus of Chalcedon on Causality, Classical Quarterly, volume 64, no. 2, pages 592-608.
• Leith DB. (2014) Medical Doxography in P. Mil. Vogl. I 15, Zeitschrift fuer Papyrologie und Epigraphik, volume 189, pages 225-232.

2012

• Leith DB. (2012) Review of: D. Gutas, Theophrastus On First Principles (Known as his Metaphysics). Philosophia Antiqua 119. Leiden, 2010, Journal of Hellenic Studies, volume 132, pages 275-276.
• Leith DB. (2012) Pores and Void in Asclepiades' Physical Theory, Phronesis: a journal for ancient philosophy, volume 57, pages 164-191, DOI:10.1163/156852812X629005.

2010

• Leith DB. (2010) 5046. Xenophon, Anabasis 1.5, 8-12, The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume LXXV, The Egypt Exploration Society, 90-92.

2009

• Leith DB. (2009) Medical and Related Texts, Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume lxxiv, The Egypt Exploration Society, 51-88.
• Leith DB. (2009) The Qualitative Status of the Onkoi in Asclepiades' Theory of Matter, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy, volume 36, no. Summer, pages 283-320.
• Leith DB, Parker DC, Pickering SR, Gonis N, Malouta M. (2009) The Oxyrhynchus Papyri Volume LXXIV, The Egypt Exploration Society.

2008

• Leith DB. (2008) The Diatritus and Therapy in Graeco-Roman Medicine, Classical Quarterly, volume 58, no. 2, pages 581-600, DOI:10.1017/S0009838808000657.

2007

• Leith DB. (2007) A Medical Treatise "On Remedies"? P.Turner 14 Revised, Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists, volume 44, pages 125-134.

2006

• Leith DB. (2006) The Antinoopolis Illustrated Herbal (PJohnson + PAntin. 3.214 = MP3 2095), Zeitschrift fuer Papyrologie und Epigraphik, volume 156, pages 141-156.

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Biography

Born in Co. Down, Northern Ireland, I took my BA (1998-2001), MA (2001-2002) and PhD (2003-2006), all in Classics, at University College London. My interest in Graeco-Roman medicine grew out of my doctoral thesis, supervised by Prof. Cornelia Römer and Prof. Vivian Nutton, which edited a selection of Greek medical papyri from Oxyrhynchus. I then worked as part of a Wellcome Trust-funded project at UCL to edit a larger batch of Oxyrhynchus medical papyri (2006-2010). From 2010-2013, I was a Wellcome Trust Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Cambridge, and a College Research Associate at Jesus College, collecting the fragments of the Greek physician Asclepiades of Bithynia, before being lucky enough to move to Exeter in September 2013.

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