Gender Testing in Antiquity

By Laurence Totelin In my last post for this blog, I examined the role of rennet (in particular, seal’s rennet) in Greek and Roman medicine. As it often happens in research – or at least in mine – once I start looking into something, I can’t stop finding related texts. So over the last two … Continue reading Gender Testing in Antiquity

Exploring CPP 10a214: The Elusive Compiler

By Rebecca Laroche with Hillary Nunn Up until now, Hillary Nunn and I have been conducting our explorations (20/06/2013, 21/05/2013, 09/04/2013, 12/03/2013, 20/02/2013) under the working hypothesis that one of the compilers of the College of Physicians manuscript 10a214 was a mid-17th century divine named Calybute Downing (1606–1644).  This hypothesis mainly grew from a simple … Continue reading Exploring CPP 10a214: The Elusive Compiler

The Food in History Conference

Editors’ note: This is our first report on the Anglo-American conference 2013. Rachel Rich’s post considers “The Politics of Food”. By Sally Osborn The 2013 Anglo-American conference, which took place in London on 11-13 July 2013, was a fascinating mix of periods, styles and types of food history and social history more generally, ranging from … Continue reading The Food in History Conference

Eating of curds and whey: rennet in ancient medicine

Last month, I examined the issue of ‘curdled milk in the breast’ in Greek and Roman medicine. The texts I quoted all used the words ‘cheesy’ (turōdēs) or ‘to make cheesy’ (turoō) – they did not refer to rennet (putia), the curdling agent in cheese making. This month, I look into the role of rennet … Continue reading Eating of curds and whey: rennet in ancient medicine