On the Properties of Foodstuffs ("De alimentorum facultatibus") (review)

After many decades of inattention to the fundamental works of Galen on dietetics, we are now happily blessed with two translations of Powers of Foods, rendered by Owen Powell as Properties of Foodstuffs; inevitable is a comparison of Powell's slightly more recent translation with that by Mark Grant,¹ since both fill a gap in the scholarship on ancient medicine. The two display different strengths. Powell brings to his translation the insights of a modern physician (he is retired from his Queensland practice), and his commentary is notably enlightening with its medical interpretations, also mirrored in translations from the Greek (pepsis is "concoction" to Powell, "digestion" to Grant—the former is accurate, if opaque to moderns, while "digestion" has occasionally too many modern connotations). There are good indices of plants in both volumes, with Powell adding an index of fish, but not including other aquatic animals in the diet (lobsters, crabs, and other crustaceans, along with many shellfish, were favorites then as they are nowadays). Powell's discussion of snails and weird animals eaten by "barbarians" is good, but he is overly interested in the vagaries of cultural distinctions, supposedly drawn by Galen, regarding Greeks contrasted with Egyptians and Persians (Galen was a cultural snob, but several anecdotes indicate that he was intrigued by the diet of the "common man," and the effect of famine on the nourishment for wet nurses).

Grant is quite comfortable with the philosophical contexts of ancient medicine, but that Powell is not is suggested by a misinterpretation of a passage in Plato's Charmides (p. 5 of Foodstuffs) inappropriately linked to one of Osler's aphorisms. Powell has based his rendition on the CMG text (V.4.2 [1923], ed. Helmreich) with occasional reference to the Kühn (6.453–748), but offers little in the way of historical antecedents beyond the English translations of Hippocrates in the Loeb Classical Library (now in eight volumes). By failing to explicate Galen's numerous forerunners (e.g., Diocles, Mnistheus), Powell leaves the contextual analysis of Hellenistic and Roman food books to the brief, if quite good, foreword by John Wilkins. Consequently, the medical terminologies considered by Powell seem stripped of historical shifts, and one wonders how phlegma is simply "mucus" (Foodstuffs, pp. 11, 27, 28, 35, 121, among many), whereas a common meaning is "inflammation."

Yet the strengths in Powell's commentary and translation outweigh the weaknesses; his clear outline of Galen's theory of digestion is a model of its kind, and there is much solid information on ancient skin diseases and how the ancients understood the digestive tract, and the functions of the liver and related organs. Pointedly, Powell avoids anachronism, except when he attributes a too-modern sophistication to Galenic prognoses. His commentaries often wander from topic to topic, sometimes never quite pinpointing a particular subject.

In sum, Powell's translation is rather less fluid than that by Grant, and Grant's commentaries are fuller, more exact (especially on the fruits, wheats, shellfish, the citron, figs, and meats), and with a better focus than given by Powell. On the other hand, Powell does bring medical clarity to his discussions—so that the two volumes offer parallel contributions, and should be consulted in tandem. Grant is better with the Greek and the specifics of Greco-Roman foodlore, botany, and zoology as applied to diet; Powell is the physician providing precise details of anatomy and physiology, with that "feel" only an experienced doctor can bring to an ancient tract. Powell and Grant lucidly represent two varieties of expertise so necessary in ancient medical studies, and together they demonstrate why each requires the specialized knowledge of the other. In many ways, Powell and Grant indicate rather well the differences between ancient Roman medicine and what we take for granted in modern practice.