AeginaGreek mythology

island, one of the largest in the Saronic group of Greece, about 16 miles (26 km) south-southwest of Piraeus. With an area of about 32 square miles (83 square km), it is an eparkhía (eparchy) of the nomós (department) of Piraeus. The northern plains and hills are cultivated with vines and olive, fig, almond, and pistachio trees, while along the east coast stretches a ridge of light volcanic rock known as trachyte. The highest point is conical Mount Áyios Ilías (ancient Mount Pan Hellenion), at 1,745 feet (532 metres). On the west coast the chief town and port, Aegina, lies over part of the ancient town of the same name.

Inhabited since Neolithic times (c. 3000 bc), the island became a leading maritime power after the 7th century bc because of its strategic position, and its silver coins became currency in most of the Dorian states. Aegina’s economic rivalry with Athens led to wars and to its close collaboration with Persia, but at the Battle of Salamis (480 bc) the island sided with Athens and prevailed. The conspicuous bravery of the tiny Aeginetan contingent (only about 40 ships) was recognized by a prize for valour. Hostility with Athens was later resumed, and at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the Athenians deported all of Aegina’s population and replaced them with Athenian settlers (431 bc). The Spartans settled the refugees in the region of Thyreatis in northern Laconia. The remnants were allowed to return from exile in 404 bc after the defeat of Athens, but Aegina never recovered from the blow. It fell with the rest of Greece to Macedon and then to the Romans in 133 bc. It regained some prosperity under Venice (1451) but was eclipsed by a pirate raid in 1537. From that time, except for another Venetian interlude, the island remained in Turkish hands until...

Alexandrian physician and surgeon, the last major ancient Greek medical encyclopaedist, who wrote the Epitomēs iatrikēs biblio hepta, better known by its Latin title, Epitomae medicae libri septem (“Medical Compendium in Seven Books”), containing nearly everything known about the medical arts in the West in his time.

Based largely on the works of such earlier Greek physicians as Galen, Oribasius, and Aëtius, the Epitome greatly influenced the medical practice of the Arabs, who considered Paul among the most authoritative of Greek medical writers. The Persian master physician ar-Rāzī (Rhazes) drew extensively from the work in writing his Kitāb al-Manṣūrī (“Book to al-Manṣūr”) and Abū al-Qāsim, one of Islām’s foremost surgeons, borrowed heavily from the Epitome’s sixth, or surgical, book in compiling the 30th chapter (“On Surgery”) of his at-Taṣrīf (“The Method”). Thus Paul’s work exercised a lasting influence on Western medieval medicine when the Arabic works were adopted as primary references in medieval Europe.

Besides his descriptions of lithotomy (surgical removal of bladder stones), trephination (removal of a disc of bone from the skull), tonsillotomy (removal of part of the tonsil), paracentesis (puncture of a body cavity in order to drain fluid), and amputation of the breast, Paul also devoted much attention in the Epitome to pediatrics and obstetrics. He dealt extensively with apoplexy and epilepsy, distinguished 62 types of pulse associated with various diseases, and rendered one of the first known descriptions of lead poisoning.