Virtual Culture: Hymn to Hygieia

“Health is a precious enjoyment, but easily impaired,” wrote the philosopher Plutarch in 1st century AD.

Rarely this century has health - and the keeping of it - occupied more of our waking thoughts. Searching for solutions to fight and treat illnesses, however, has been a primary concern throughout every period of civilization. How did ancient Greeks care for their nutrition and bodies? How did they address the issue of public health? What would an athlete or soldier do if he got injured 2.500 years ago? Were there any surgical tools? 

Addressing our current reality, the Museum of Cycladic Art has dipped into its archives to re-package a former exhibition on Health, illness and treatment in Ancient Greece as a fascinating digital classroom. Take a walk-through the various related units such as health, hygiene, illness, treatment and Homeric medicine and make a pit-stop to listen to a curator’s talk with English sub-titles. Your virtual education will take you from the days when all illnesses and cures were deemed divine intervention, to the earliest foundations of rational scientific medicine.