Greek Noun Research Articles

Health rituals at a Lebanese Shrine

A great deal of interest has been evinced in the past few years in what appears to be the surprising survival of the practices of folk medicine. In the Near East as medical services based on Western scientific ideas spread down the urban social scale and into rural areas, it can be seen that folk medicine still often thrives although medical services fail to attract sufferers from certain kinds of illness. In recent studies on the Lebanon it has been suggested that the practice among childless women of making a pilgrimage to the source of the Adonis river during the spring in order to hang small strips of cloth on a particular tree is derived from the Phoenician cult of Astarte,' and several female health taboos are now thought to derive from the same ancient fertility cult.2 It is difficult to believe that Christians and Moslems would persist in activities which depend on a belief in a world order dominated by personalized natural forces, unless some further significance had been given to these practices. Often it is easier to see the link with the past than to understand the current significance given to health rituals, since those who participate in them are not completely articulate about what they do and are frequently understandably shy in explaining their actions. A few of the contemporary Lebanese rituals invoking the aid of St George may, however, provide an indication of the way in which certain ancient beliefs have evolved so as to remain acceptable, and of why in an environment of twentieth-century materialism the practices related to those beliefs may still seem effective. The cult of St George is an ancient one. In its Christian form it dates back to at least the fourth century A.D., but there is reason to believe that it has its origins in a much earlier pagan cult which was widely popular in Syria and Palestine,3 and closely related to the agricultural cycle. The two festivals of the saint support this hypothesis: April 23 marks the return of flocks from winter to summer pastures and the weaning of young animals born during the winter months, while the festival falling on November 16 coincides with the sowing of crops and the approximate start of the winter rains in Palestine. The Greek noun George itself means farmer and in some Syriac texts the saint was referred to as 'the good husbandman'.4 Contemporary evidence from Cyprus where churches are dedicated to St George of the Threshing Floor and St George of the Carob Trees5 makes this early connection with agriculture still more explicit. The first churches dedicated to St George were in Syrian and Palestinian towns, such as Lydda, which had a close relationship with the surrounding countryside. An inscription from Syria provides evidence of the conversion of at least one pagan temple to the cult of the saint,6 and

GLAUKOMA AND GLAUCOMA.

Glaukoma is an ancient Greek noun meaning glaze, such as the silveriness of the sea, the waxy bloom on a plum or a grape, or the dull sheen or glint of an eye that has lost its brightness. glaze of death over his eyes. Glaukoma is no definite morbid entity but merely the off-color lack-luster appearance of a blind eye. Least of all does it mean opacity of the crystalline lens, cataract, as defined in Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon—a definition palpably wrong, for the ancient Greeks had no concept whatever of cataract as such. Nor can glaukoma mean glaucoma, which only in very modern times has been recognized as an entity. Glaukoma to the ancient Greeks was simply glaze, a visible objective manifestation of partial or complete blindness. All dictionary definitions of ancient medical words are suspect, tending to be vitiated by the almost unavoidable fallacy of interpreting ancient medical words in terms of modern knowledge. The ancients knew nothing of pathology as we know it, and their whole concept of ocular pathology hardly extended beyond the concept of blindness, with very little differentiation. In general ancient medical terms have

書評、紹介、消息 Buck & Petersen, Walter著 A reverse index of Greek nouns and adjectives

書評、紹介、消息 Buck & Petersen, Walter著 A reverse index of Greek nouns and adjectives

A Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives. By C. D. Buck and W. Petersen. Pp. xvii + 765. Chicago: University Press (Cambridge: University Press), 1945. £3.

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Greek Nouns and Adjectives - Carl Darling Buck and Walter Petersen: A Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives arranged by terminations with brief historical introductions.Pp. xvii+765. Chicago: University of Chicago Press(Cambridge:University Press), 1945. Cloth, £3 net.

Greek Nouns and Adjectives - Carl Darling Buck and Walter Petersen: A Reverse Index of Greek Nouns and Adjectives arranged by terminations with brief historical introductions.Pp. xvii+765. Chicago: University of Chicago Press(Cambridge:University Press), 1945. Cloth, £3 net. - Volume 61 Issue 1

“Cryology”

Shortly before the war this new word for the study of glaciology was coined in Central Europe. The Greek noun κρύος means “cold.” It is not clear why this word should be applied exclusively to cooled water; it could equally well be used for any cooled substance, for example carbon dioxide or ice cream.

“Cryology”

Shortly before the war this new word for the study of glaciology was coined in Central Europe. The Greek noun κρύος means “cold.” It is not clear why this word should be applied exclusively to cooled water; it could equally well be used for any cooled substance, for example carbon dioxide or ice cream.

Book Review: Studies in Greek Noun Formation. Labial Terminations, I-IV

Book Review: Studies in Greek Noun Formation. Labial Terminations, I-IV

The Declension of Greek Nouns in Plautus

The Declension of Greek Nouns in Plautus

“On the Uncontracted Form of the Genitive Case Singular of Greek Nouns of the Second Declension;”

“On the Uncontracted Form of the Genitive Case Singular of Greek Nouns of the Second Declension;”