1245
. From Craig S. Keener, “Fever and Dysentery in Acts
28
:
8
and Ancient Medicine,” Bulletin for Biblical Research
19
(
3
,
2009
):
393–402
. Reprinted by permission from Penn State University Press.
. Various writers’ ideas are preserved under Hippocrates’s name. Although I cite the works under their purported authors’ names for the sake of consistency (since degree of certainty about the authenticity of documents varies), probably most of the Hippocratic corpus belongs to Hippocrates’s successors.
. See Grafton, “Health,”
45–46
.
. I am not arguing that Luke’s language proves that he was a physician, a position long ago discredited by comparisons with nonmedical writers. Nevertheless, as many scholars note, his language is at least not incompatible with the view that he was a physician (see e.g., Eckey, Apostelgeschichte,
1
:
14–15
; Witherington, Acts,
779
n
129
; Roschke, “Healing,”
463–64
). For one important and detailed study finding much medical imagery in Luke-Acts, see Weissenrieder, Images.
. See e.g., Hemer, Acts in History,
153–54
.
. Larkin, Acts,
381
.
. Barrett, Acts,
1226
.
. Touwaide, “Disease,”
550
. In most cities some people had fever, but only in unusual epidemics did most people have it (Dio Chrysostom Or.
32
.
92
). “Fever” usually designated a particular class of illness (Nutton, “Fever,”
409
).
. Sallares, “Disease”; especially malaria (Nutton, “Fever,”
410
; cf. Touwaide, “Malaria”).
. Touwaide, “Malaria.” For ancient mosquito plagues, and local efforts to eradicate them, see Hünemörder, “Mosquito.”
. Heraclitus Hom. Prob.
11
.
5
; Touwaide, “Malaria,”
195
.
. The singular appears in Matt
8
:
15
; Mark
1
:
31
; Luke
4
:
38–39
; John
4
:
52
; LXX Deut
28
:
22
; Josephus Ant.
13
.
398
; War
1
.
656
; Life
48
; never in the Apostolic Fathers. It is plural in Josephus War
1
.
106
.
. Hobart, Medical Language,
52
; Ramsay, Luke the Physician,
16
. That malarial (and “sand-fly”) attacks were intermittent, of course, requires no specialist knowledge (Lake and Cadbury, Commentary,
343
), and Luke’s Mediterranean audience would grasp his point readily.
. With, e.g., Lake and Cadbury, Commentary,
343
. Sallares, “Disease,” speaks of malarial fevers recurring “every two or three days.” No one would assume that one who had recovered from fever only a few days before had necessarily been cured (Dio Chrysostom Or.
34
.
17
), so presumably it is the immediacy of the father’s healing here that publicizes it as a cure rather than a more usual, temporary recovery. For continuous fever see e.g., Hippocrates Epid.
2
.
2
.
6
;
5
.
1
,
16
.
. Hippocrates Epid.
7
.
2
. My wife and children, who are from Congo-Brazzaville, experienced frequent nocturnal malarial attacks in Central Africa.
. Hippocrates Dis.
2
.
40
(recommending withholding medicine till the ninth day, after the patient had finished being “cleaned out”).
. Sallares, “Disease,” suggests that malaria was most common in summer and fall; but fall had transitioned into winter here.
. Hippocrates Reg.
24
.
. See Hippocrates Nat. Man
15
.
1–40
. Sallares, “Disease,” notes three types: (
1
) falciparum, the most harmful; (
2
) vivax, the most common; and (
3
) quartan.
. See Hippocrates Epid.
1
.
24
; also Nat. Man
15
.
22–40
, on quartans.
. Hippocrates Epid.
6
.
6
.
11
. On quartan fever (tetartaios), see further Epid.
4
.
13
;
6
.
6
.
5
.
. Hippocrates Nat. Man
15
.
22–40
. Four-day fevers (quadrini) did not start in the winter (Pliny Nat.
7
.
50
.
170
).
. Hippocrates Epid.
7
.
45
.
. Hippocrates Epid.
4
.
13
.
. Epid.
5
.
89
;
7
.
43
,
95
,
96
.
. Epid.
2
.
3
.
1
. Aff.
14
prescribed drink and gruel for violent summer fevers, with recovery expected on the seventh or ninth day.
. Epid.
4
.
20
.
. Epid.
6
.
2
.
10
.
. Hippocrates Progn.
20
.
1–3
.
. Progn.
20
.
4–5
.
. Progn.
20
.
5–18
.
. Progn.
20
.
19–22
.
. Hippocrates Epid.
6
.
14
.
. Aff.
12
. Some apparently contended that wine could cool the body (Macrobius Sat.
7
.
6
.
3
,
7
).
. Flogiôsin, Hippocrates Glands
2
. Fever is kausoi in Hippocrates Airs
3
.
27–29
.
. B. Ned.
41
a.
. Hippocrates Pl. Man
27
. Dis.
1
.
23
views the heating of bile or phlegm as the cause of fever.
. Hippocrates Pl. Man
27
. One should not, however, heat the head, lest one add to the fever and produce delirium (
33
).
. Epid.
6
.
6
.
5
. See the occasional beneficial effects of dysentery Hippocratics supposed below.
. This paragraph uses information from Grafton, “Health,”
45–46
. He notes that feverish patients, without further description, appear in O.Claud
2
.
212
and
2
.
213
.
. P.Oxy
8
.
1151
(fifth century CE). Shivering also appears in connection with fever in P.Batav
20
, from the sixth century CE; by itself, it also appears in P.Mert
1
.
26
.
. Epid.
2
.
6
.
26
;
7
.
3
; Hobart, Medical Language,
52
; see especially Weissenrieder, Images,
342
(who notes connections with this illness in ancient medical texts, especially Luke’s depiction of the father’s age, the season, and the climate,
343–44
). For dysentery accompanying other symptoms, see also Hippocrates Prorrh.
1
.
143
; Epid.
1
.
17
.
5–13
.
. Epid.
7
.
3
. Cicero had dysentery for ten days (Fam.
7
.
26
; Shelton, As the Romans Did,
86
).
. Hippocrates Epid.
1
.
15
.
16–18
.
. Epid.
7
.
39
. Fevers made digestion worse (Galen Nat.
2
.
8
.
119
); thin excretions from the bowels often accompanied dysentery (Hippocrates Epid.
1
.
17
.
1–4
).
. Hippocrates Airs
7
.
27–29. (On climate conditions for dysentery, cf. also Airs
3
.
24
.) Ancients also recognized that malaria prevailed especially in swampy regions (Heraclitus Hom. Prob.
11
.
5
; Touwaide, “Malaria,”
195
).
. Airs
10
.
13
.
. So painful was dysentery that later rabbis assigned it atoning efficacy, forgiving all of the sufferer’s sins (Le Cornu, Acts,
1486
, citing b. Erub.
41
b). Josephus attributes the affliction of Ashdod partly to dysentery (Ant.
6
.
3
). Documentary papyri in Duke’s database lack the term dusenterion, but dusenterikos appears in O.Claud
4
.
708
,
717
(Grafton, “Health,”
135
).
. Prorrh.
2
.
22
.
. Hippocrates Aff.
23
, LCL
5
:
43
(noting that one should treat it, by cleaning the head and providing medicine to clean out bile; doing so while the patient remained strong was his or her only hope).
. E.g., Epid.
4
.
38
,
41
;
7
.
3
. In one unusual account, one woman had dysentery and bloody stool until she gave birth, then became healthy (Epid.
5
.
90
;
7
.
99
).
. Epid.
5
.
30
.
. Galen Nat.
2
.
9
.
131
. See also sources cited by Weissenrieder, Images,
341
.
. Sallares, “Disease.”
. Epid.
2
.
6
.
26
.
. Epid.
1
.
20
.
1
.
. Epid.
1
.
20
.
4
.
. Airs
3
.
27–29
.
. Hippocrates Prorrh.
2
.
22
. Cf. Epid.
4
.
38
, where a patient’s health improved in general after their dysentery.
. After dysentery ended, the patient would have “an abscess or some swelling” (Reg.
35
; LCL
6
:
301
).
. Touwaide, “Malaria,”
195
.
. Hippocrates Aff.
12
; (more severely) Reg.
24
. Drink and gruel also helped summer fevers (Aff.
14
).
. For a mother caring for her child (t. Sabb.
12
:
13
[R. Simeon b. Gamaliel]; y. M.S.
2
:
1
, §
4
).
. Stambaugh, City,
136–37
.
. Pliny Nat.
26
.
71
.
115
; another remedy in
116
.
. Pliny Nat.
28
.
66
.
228
(in a larger list in
28
.
66
.
228–29
).
. Pliny Nat.
28
.
66
.
228
. Pliny reports with healthy cynicism such cures proposed by Magi (Pliny Nat.
28
.
66
.
229
); he notes that they specify the necessary details of the cures so precisely that no one can obtain such things (
29
.
12
.
53
)! According to the Magi, mixing the head and tail of a dragon with a lion’s forehead hair and other substances makes one invulnerable (
29
.
20
.
68
).
. Pliny Nat. 28
.
66
.
228
(the amulet must be worn for seven of the fever’s periods, to prevent relapse).
. Pliny Nat.
28
.
23
.
82
.
. Pliny Nat.
28
.
23
.
83
.
. Pliny Nat.
28
.
58
.
202–10
, deals with cures for the bowels in general.
. Pliny Nat.
20
.
11
.
21
.
. Nat.
24
.
72
.
116
. Basil rubbed into the skin also helped diarrhea associated with cholera (Pliny Nat.
20
.
48
.
121–22
).
. Nat.
24
.
79
.
129
.
. Pliny Nat.
28
.
58
.
204
.
. Nat.
20
.
84
.
227–28
.
. Nat.
20
.
86
.
234
.
. Nat.
22
.
55
.
116
.
. Nat.
23
.
3
.
3
. So also omphacium, from vines (
23
.
4
.
7
), and ground up grape stones (
23
.
9
.
13
).
. Nat.
23
.
81
.
162
.
. Porneiê, in Epid.
7
.
122
.
. Pliny Nat.
30
.
19
.
55–58
.
. Pliny Nat.
30
.
30
.
98
. For traditional magical cures for quartan fevers, see Pliny Nat.
30
.
30
.
98–104
.
. Peregr.
28
.
. See e.g., Theissen, Miracle Stories,
65
. For one recent survey of ancient miracle stories, see Cotter, Miracles; more briefly, Achtemeier, Miracle Tradition,
205–9
. For limitations, see Eve, Miracles; Keener, Miracles,
1
:
35–82
, esp.
67–76
.
. Valerius Maximus
2
.
5
.
6
(noting that people brought remedies to these shrines, which they then applied to the afflicted). Cf. also Graf, “Healing Gods.” In the second and third centuries CE those with malaria also invoked “Tertiana or Quartana (CIL
7
.
99
;
12
.
3129
); in Cicero’s day they were not yet deified (Nat. d.
3
.
24
)” (Graf, “Healing Gods”; see also Nutton, “Fever,”
410
); on personified Febris, see also Schaffner, “Febris,”
376
.
. Pliny Nat.
2
.
5
.
15–16
, esp.
16
.
. Scheid, “Febris.”
. See Dickie, “Headless Demons”; Levene, “Heal.”
. E.g., PGM
36
.
69
,
80–84
,
102
,
110–14
,
199–200
,
295–311
,
340–41
,
346
,
355–59
;
62
.
1–24
;
101
.
32–33
.
. Cf. especially LiDonnici, “Burning.”
. A name associated in part with a “four-seasoned year” (OTP
1
:
969
n
7
.c.), but the demon is associated especially with summer and fires (T. Sol.
8
:
5
).
. T. Sol.
8
:
6
.
. T. Sol.
8
:
7
. I am grateful to one of the anonymous BBR reviewers of the earlier version of this article for bringing the T. Sol. reference to my attention.
. Philostratus Her.
16
.
1
.
. Although most of my African informants have suffered malaria and used medicine, there are reports of some instant and permanent healings from severe forms of malaria (e.g., Thomas, Walls,
84
; on a popular level but by a reliable informant known to me).