"This book brilliantly reflects the tendency of the new historiography of science to understand medical theory and practice against the background of comprehensive cultural, historical, and philosophical developments. The author expertly applies this view to an extraordinarily serious issue in the healing arts of antiquity. Veterans as well as novices in the field might expect a true intellectual pleasure reopening the discussion on the old and well-known dictum 'Ubi desinit philosophus, ibi incipit medicus'."—Prof. Dr. med. Axel Karenberg, Institute for the History of Medicine and Medical Ethics, University of Cologne, Germany