Abstract:
Famous physician of Antiquity Hippocrates in his work “On Airs, Waters, and Places” tells about the medical state of the Colchians. The illness, casual for the Colchians, which is described by Hippocrates, generally is interpreted as malaria. However, when we researched this issue deeply, we discovered that it should not have been malaria and this paper argues that this is hepatitis A. According to these symptoms and conditions at a glance, two options are possible – malaria and hepatitis A. Since malaria is characterized by anorexia, patient cannot have malaria, especially in heavy cases and have an overweight simultaneously and since malaria causes diarrhea, nausea and vomiting, soon after infection the patient looses weight. This symptom is contradictory to the overweight. Therefore the disease described by Hippocrates cannot be malaria. Hepatitis A is an acute infectious disease of the liver caused by the hepatitis A virus. It is gastrointestinal illness. Since it is caused by pollution, sometimes is called “dirty hands spread disease”. Since hepatitis A is spread in dirty conditions, this is an enteroviral illness, and we know that the Colchians lived in pollution according to Hippocrates, in our opinion, it is quite possible that this disease is hepatitis A. The other argument why this disease is hepatitis A and not malaria is that part of the Colchians seemed to use a cure against hepatitis A. The information about this cure is given indirectly in ancient sources. In folk medicine Hepatitis A is cured with the use of living lice in Georgia. The lice are given to patient orally – they actually eat living lice. Physicians neither officially use this method, nor deny its efficiency. But this is less interesting for us. Much important is that this method is still used by people in Georgia in purpose to cure the hepatitis A. Strabo, Pliny and Ptolemy mention the tribe of the Phtheirophagi (lice-eaters). To sum up, based on the symptoms and living conditions of the Colchians, which were encountered by Hippocrates and according to the information given us about other ancient sources indirectly, we can conclude, that the illness, which the Colchians were suffering from was not Malaria, as it was thought earlier, but was hepatitis A. Also, during our research we encountered that the Greeks were giving name to barbarian tribes not only according to their ethnical identity but also, according to their health condition, which is very rare in ancient historiography.
