ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book looks at Alcmaeon of Croton's incipit, the longest surviving extract from his treatise On Nature. It explores On Winds, a text of a rhetorical character. The book investigates how the reader might have reacted to its several allusions to wind and bloated bellies, starting from the observation that terms denoting farting were normally found in ancient comedy and satire, where the audience were expected to laugh. It focuses on the influential physician Galen and explores a lesser-known aspect of his profile, namely his identity as a moralist and soul-doctor, on the basis of his rather overlooked treatise Exhortation to the Study of Medicine. The book considers how Galen's On the Usefulness of the Parts was adapted in the Arabic-Islamic world of the ninth to the twelfth century to meet the needs and expectations of a non-medical and a medical audience.
