Les thérapeutiques « populaires » dans la médecine impériale : formes et fonctions d’unetransgression
Therapies based on folk medicine in imperial medical treatises: forms and functions of a transgressive scriptural practice

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this paper is to underline the coincidences of some therapies based on folk medicine, that we can find both in Latin medical treatises and in the work of Aretaeus of Cappadocia, Greek physician from imperial times. Thus, we are able to reflect on the form and function that this type of pharmacology had in the writings of Latin authors on one hand and, on the other, in some treatises of the Greek medical literature. In terms of content, Aretaeus indeed transmits to us facts that we also find in Celsus and Scribonius Largus, but as far as the style and the function of those therapies are concerned, he seems to side rather with Pliny the Elder and what we could consider to be the aesthetics of horror in Roman literature. In doing so, the Cappadocian is clearly putting his oeuvre in the realm of the rationalist classical medicine, but his intentions are at the same time also literary, with a strong inclination towards powerful and evocative images.

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