Words and abbreviations

118 of 118 entries

AbscessWord

A pocket of pus under the skin or in tissue. Ancient surgeons lanced (cut open) abscesses to drain them — one of the few operations that still looks wise.

ADAbbreviation

Latin for “in the year of the Lord.” Dates after the traditional birth of Jesus (the calendar’s year 1 is a few years later than most historians now place that birth). This site uses AD for first-century years. 33 AD is a year, not “33 years old.”

Also: Anno Domini

AlexandriaWord

Egyptian city and the great medical school of the Hellenistic world. Much of the surgery Celsus describes was learned from Alexandrian tradition.

AllicinWord

A sulfur compound formed when garlic is crushed. It has mild antimicrobial effects — one reason household garlic was not only folklore.

AmputationWord

Cutting off a limb, usually for gangrene or a smashed, dying extremity. Done with cautery to stop bleeding. Many patients died of shock or infection afterward.

AnestheticWord

A drug that takes away pain or consciousness. First-century surgeons had no reliable general anesthetic. Wine was usual; mandrake or opium were possible but uncertain in Judea.

Also: Anaesthetic

AnointingWord

Rubbing oil on the body for honor, ritual, or healing. James 5:14 tells the church to pray and anoint the sick with oil.

AntimicrobialWord

Able to slow or kill microbes (bacteria, fungi). Ancients did not know germs, but honey, wine, myrrh, and garlic can act this way in part.

AntisepticWord

A substance used on skin or wounds to reduce infection. Wine and honey were the best everyday antiseptics of the period.

ArteriotomyWord

Opening an artery, not just a vein, to let blood. A more dangerous cousin of venesection, described for some eye complaints.

Asclepiades of BithyniaWord

Greek physician in Rome (c. 130–40 BC) who preferred diet, baths, and wine over heavy bleeding and purging. He taught that the body is pores and particles, not four fluids.

AstringentWord

A substance that tightens or dries tissue — for example pomegranate rind used on loose bowels or weeping sores.

AtomistWord

A medical theory that the body is made of particles and pores, not four humors. Asclepiades is the famous first-century-BC voice of this view in Rome.

Also: Corpuscular

AtropineWord

A powerful alkaloid in nightshade plants such as mandrake. It can sedate — and can kill. Named here only to explain why mandrake was both medicine and poison.

Balm of GileadWord

Aromatic resin from balsam shrubs grown especially near Jericho and Ein Gedi. Judea’s most famous luxury drug, praised by Pliny and Dioscorides.

Also: Balsam · Commiphora gileadensis

BCAbbreviation

Years before the traditional birth of Jesus (for example 6 BC or 4 BC). Same idea as BCE (“Before the Common Era”).

Also: Before Christ

BCEAbbreviation

Secular date label meaning the same span as BC. This site mostly writes BC.

Also: Before the Common Era

Ben SiraWord

Jewish wisdom book (early 2nd century BC) still read in Jesus’s world. Chapter 38 tells readers to honor physicians and not despise earth-grown medicines.

Also: Sirach · Ecclesiasticus

BitumenWord

Natural tar from the Dead Sea, traded as a mineral drug and sealant. A Judean export alongside balsam.

Black bileWord

The cold, dry humor of autumn and earth. Excess was thought to cause melancholy — sadness, heaviness, and dark thoughts. More inferred than seen.

Also: Melaina chole

BloodlettingWord

Removing blood to “rebalance” the body. Done by opening a vein, applying leeches, or cupping. The most common learned procedure of the age, and usually harmful.

c.Abbreviation

Latin circa, “approximately.” Used with uncertain dates (c. 6 BC means “about 6 BC”).

Also: ca. · circa

CaldariumWord

The hot room of a Roman bath. Used with the tepidarium (warm) and frigidarium (cold).

Calor, rubor, tumor, dolorWord

Latin for heat, redness, swelling, and pain. Celsus’s four signs of inflammation — still taught in medical schools.

Also: Four signs of inflammation

CarminativeWord

A herb or spice that eases gas and bloating — cumin, fennel, dill, mint.

CatharticWord

A strong laxative that empties the bowel. Senna is the classic example. Humoral doctors used cathartics to “purge” extra fluids.

CauteryWord

A heated iron used to stop bleeding or burn away dead or infected tissue. Extremely painful; wine was given for courage.

Also: Cauterization

CEAbbreviation

Secular date label meaning the same years as AD. This site mostly writes AD.

Also: Common Era

CelsusWord

Roman writer of De Medicina (about the 30s AD), the best encyclopaedia of elite medicine from Jesus’s own generation. Diet, drugs, and surgery.

Also: Aulus Cornelius Celsus · De Medicina

CholericWord

Temperament of yellow bile: hot, dry, passionate, quick to anger. Summer and fire in the humoral chart.

CommiphoraWord

The plant genus of myrrh and of balsam (balm of Gilead). Trees and shrubs that yield aromatic resin.

CorpusWord

A collection of writings under one name. The Hippocratic Corpus is the body of Greek medical texts attached to Hippocrates.

Also: Hippocratic Corpus

Counter-irritationWord

Irritating the skin on purpose (as with a mustard plaster) in the hope of helping a deeper ache by drawing blood to the surface.

CuppingWord

Heated cups placed on the skin to suck blood or “vapors” toward the surface. Wet cupping also cuts the skin so blood enters the cup.

De Materia MedicaWord

Greek herbal by Dioscorides (c. 50–70 AD): about 600 plants and 1,000 preparations. The standard pharmacopoeia of Europe and the Near East for some 1,500 years.

De MedicinaWord

Celsus’s Latin medical encyclopaedia, written about the 30s AD. Eight books covering diet, pharmacy, and surgery.

DecoctionWord

A tea made by boiling plant parts (often roots or bark) rather than steeping leaves. Licorice root was commonly decocted.

DemulcentWord

A soothing, coating preparation for raw throats or guts — honey and licorice are examples.

DioscoridesWord

Greek army physician (c. 40–90 AD) who wrote De Materia Medica after travelling the eastern Mediterranean, including Petra.

Also: Pedanius Dioscorides

DiureticWord

Something that increases urine. Parsley and lovage were used this way in kitchen-pharmacy.

DudaimWord

Hebrew word in Genesis for mandrake fruits, treated there as a fertility charm.

Ein GediWord

Oasis on the Dead Sea famous for balsam groves, alongside the gardens near Jericho.

ElectuaryWord

A paste of powdered herbs mixed with honey so bitter drugs could be swallowed.

EmeticWord

A drug that causes vomiting. Used to empty the stomach and, in theory, extra humors.

EncyclopaediaWord

A work that tries to cover a whole field. Celsus’s De Medicina is the surviving medical part of a larger Roman encyclopaedia.

Also: Encyclopedia

EssenesWord

A Jewish sect of the Second Temple period, associated by some with Qumran. Josephus says they were interested in roots and healing lore.

EzovWord

Biblical plant name, widely identified with Syrian oregano (Origanum syriacum), not European garden hyssop. Used in ritual sprinkling and folk teas.

Also: Hyssop

FluxWord

An old word for a flow from the body — diarrhea, discharge, or watering eyes. Humoral doctors tried to stop, redirect, or encourage fluxes.

FrigidariumWord

The cold-water room or plunge of a Roman bath.

GalenWord

Physician of the 2nd century AD (after Jesus). Later ages read all ancient medicine through Galen. This site flags him so he is not back-dated into the 30s AD.

Also: Galen of Pergamon

GalenicWord

Medicine as later systematized by Galen: a tight humoral system. In 30 AD that system did not yet exist in finished form.

GangreneWord

Death of tissue, often in a limb, with rotting and spreading infection. Amputation was the last resort.

GospelsWord

The four New Testament narratives of Jesus’s life (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John). They record healings, oil and wine on wounds, and Luke as a physician.

HaimaWord

Greek for blood, the hot-wet humor of spring and air. Linked to the sanguine temperament.

HerniotomyWord

Surgery to repair a hernia (a bulge of tissue through a weak spot). Celsus describes specialist operations of this kind — not village craft.

HippocratesWord

Greek physician (c. 460–370 BC). Later doctors claimed him as ancestor. Observation, prognosis, and regimen before the knife are the Hippocratic inheritance.

Also: Hippocrates of Kos

HippocraticWord

In the tradition of Hippocrates: natural causes of disease, watching the course of fever, diet and rest before heroic cutting.

HumorWord

One of four bodily fluids — blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile — whose balance was thought to make health. The main scientific model of the Greco-Roman clinic.

Also: Humoral theory · Four humors

InfusionWord

A tea made by steeping leaves or flowers in hot water (gentler than a decoction).

Jesus, dates ofWord

Not recorded as a number of years. Luke 3:23 says he was “about thirty” when he began to preach. Later church tradition adds a three-year ministry and lands on “died at 33.” Most historians date the birth to about 6–4 BC (before Herod the Great died) and the crucifixion to AD 30 or 33, under Pontius Pilate. There is no year zero, so that span is roughly the mid-thirties — sometimes counted as about 36 — an estimate, not a known birthday. This site uses a round window, c. 6 BC – 33 AD, for the medical world around him.

Also: Age of Jesus

JosephusWord

Jewish historian of the 1st century AD. He describes balsam plantations, Essenes, and the war that ended in 70 AD.

JudeaWord

The Roman-period name for the southern Jewish homeland around Jerusalem. A client landscape of Torah, Greek cities, and balsam estates.

Also: Judaea

Julio-ClaudianWord

The first Roman imperial dynasty (Augustus through Nero). Jesus’s lifetime falls in this era (especially Tiberius).

LancetWord

A small, sharp blade for opening a vein or an abscess.

LatexWord

Milky sap of some plants. Fig latex is caustic and was used on warts and boils; it is not the same as rubber-tree latex.

LeechWord

A blood-sucking worm applied to the skin as a gentler form of bloodletting. The animal measures the blood for you.

Lemnian earthWord

A stamped medicinal clay from the island of Lemnos, sold as a brand-name mineral drug for wounds and swallowed as an antidote.

Also: Terra Lemnia · Terra sigillata

LentiskWord

A Mediterranean shrub whose resin (especially from Chios) was chewed for the stomach and breath.

Also: Mastic · Pistacia lentiscus

LeviticalWord

Belonging to the book of Leviticus, the Torah’s priestly law. Chapters 13–15 cover skin disease, fluxes, and washing — holiness with a quarantine diagram.

Also: Leviticus

LigatureWord

Tying a blood vessel with thread to stop bleeding. Celsus records it clearly; many later centuries forgot the technique.

LithotomyWord

Cutting for bladder stone. A specialist operation in Celsus, not something a village healer attempted.

LukeWord

Companion of Paul, called “the beloved physician” in Colossians 4:14. Traditional author of the Gospel of Luke and Acts.

LyeWord

An alkaline washing substance. Judean saltbush could yield soap-ash; part of the land’s reputation for cleansing products.

Also: Atriplex halimus

MandrakeWord

A Mediterranean nightshade with a forked root and narcotic alkaloids. Folklore treated it as a fertility charm; it is toxic in overdose.

Also: Mandragora

Materia medicaWord

Latin for “medical materials”: the plants, animal parts, and minerals used as drugs. Also the name of books that list them.

MelancholicWord

Temperament of black bile: thoughtful, anxious, sleepless. Excess melancholy was treated with warmth, company, wine in measure — and sometimes, unwisely, bleeding.

Also: Melancholy

MethodistWord

A Greek medical school that treated disease as the body being too tight (strictum) or too loose (laxum), rather than as four humors. One of several first-century options.

MikvehWord

A Jewish ritual bath of “living” (flowing or spring-fed) water. For purity before God, not a Roman spa — but it made washing ordinary.

Also: Mikva’ot

Mosaic LawWord

The Law of Moses: the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. Includes food rules, washing, and priestly inspection of skin disease.

Also: Torah · Pentateuch

MyrrhWord

Bitter resin of Commiphora trees from Arabia and East Africa. Used as incense, wound salve, perfume, and burial spice (John 19:39).

NardWord

Costly Himalayan aromatic oil. Mary of Bethany anoints Jesus with nard (John 12:3). Proof that Judea was wired into long-distance trade.

Also: Spikenard · Nardostachys

OcclusiveWord

A dressing or oil that seals the skin and holds moisture in. Olive oil is occlusive: it soothes by covering, not by killing germs.

OlibanumWord

The resin of Boswellia trees, burned as Temple incense and used on swellings and coughs.

Also: Frankincense

OpiumWord

Latex of the opium poppy, a true painkiller. Known in the wider Roman world; how often it reached a Galilean village is uncertain.

PharmacopoeiaWord

An official or standard list of drugs and how to prepare them. Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica functioned as the ancient world’s pharmacopoeia.

PharmacyWord

The craft of preparing medicines (and the shop or chest that holds them). Distinct from surgery and from regimen.

PhlebotomyWord

Another word for venesection: cutting a vein to let blood.

PhlegmWord

The cold, wet humor of winter and water. Mucus and sluggishness. Treated with heat, spices, steam, and mustard plasters.

Also: Phlegma

PhlegmaticWord

Temperament of phlegm: calm, slow, steadfast, pale.

Pliny the ElderWord

Roman admiral and compiler (23–79 AD) of Natural History. He catalogues plants and folk cures, praises Judean balsam, and complains about Greek doctors.

Also: Natural History

PoulticeWord

A wet mash of herbs, meal, or fruit spread on cloth and bound to the skin. King Hezekiah’s fig plaster (2 Kings 20:7) is the biblical type.

Also: Cataplasm

PrognosisWord

Telling the likely course of an illness. Hippocratic physicians were often valued more for prediction than for cure.

PurgingWord

Emptying the stomach (emetic) or bowel (cathartic) to remove “extra” humor. Senna is a typical purge.

Also: Purge

QumranWord

Settlement by the Dead Sea associated with the Dead Sea Scrolls and, in many reconstructions, with Essene life.

ReductionWord

Putting a broken bone back into line (pulling and aligning) before splinting. A good reduction can save a limb’s usefulness.

RegimenWord

A prescribed pattern of food, wine, exercise, bathing, sleep, and sex. For learned doctors this was first-line treatment, before drugs or the knife.

Also: Dietetics

ResinWord

Sticky plant gum that hardens in air — myrrh, balsam, frankincense, mastic. Often antimicrobial and used on wounds or as incense.

RofeWord

Hebrew for physician. Sirach treats the role as a gift from God, not as a pagan hobby.

Also: Rof'im

SalveWord

A thick spread for the skin, usually oil plus wax and herbs. Stays put longer than a thin oil.

Also: Ointment

SanguineWord

Temperament of blood: cheerful, generous, talkative, rosy. Excess was treated by cooling and, too often, by bleeding.

Second TempleWord

The period of Jewish history from the rebuilding of the Temple (late 6th century BC) until its destruction in 70 AD. Jesus’s lifetime is late Second Temple.

SennaWord

Imported leaves that strongly stimulate the bowel. They work — and can cramp and dehydrate. A standard humoral purge.

Also: Sennosides

SepphorisWord

A rebuilt Greek-style city in Galilee near Nazareth. A likely market for Greek-trained physicians as well as village herbalists.

SepsisWord

Infection that has spread through the body, with fever and often death. Ancients saw the fever after a small wound as a bad sign; they had no name for bacteria.

SplintWord

Sticks, reeds, or boards bound to a broken limb so the bone stays still while it heals.

Spp.Abbreviation

Latin species plural. After a genus name it means “several species of this plant,” for example Boswellia spp. (frankincense trees).

Also: species plural

Strictum and laxumWord

Methodist medical pair: the body too tight or too loose. Treatment aimed to relax or constrict, instead of balancing four humors.

StrigilWord

A curved metal scraper used in Roman baths to wipe off oil, sweat, and dirt after exercise.

TanninsWord

Plant compounds that bind and dry tissue. Pomegranate rind is rich in tannins, which is why it was used as an astringent.

TemperamentWord

Character type tied to a dominant humor: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, melancholic. Thought to be physiology, not metaphor.

TepidariumWord

The warm room of a Roman bath, between the hot caldarium and the cold frigidarium.

Terra sigillataWord

“Sealed earth”: stamped cakes of medicinal clay. Lemnian earth is the famous brand.

TheriacWord

A compound antidote paste, sometimes with dozens of ingredients. Already known in this world; later centuries made it famous.

ThermaeWord

Public Roman baths. A civic machine of heat, oil, and cold water that physicians turned into prescriptions.

TorahWord

The Instruction: the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, and by extension Jewish law. Food, purity, and priestly medicine sit here.

Tzara’atWord

The skin affliction of Leviticus 13–14, often translated “leprosy” but covering several conditions. A priest diagnosed it; isolation followed.

VenesectionWord

Cutting a vein to let blood. The flagship procedure of humoral practice.

Also: Phlebotomy

Yellow bileWord

The hot, dry humor of summer and fire. Excess meant anger, burning stomach, jaundice, and acute inflammations. Choleric temperament.

Also: Xanthe chole