PhD student Nicolette D’Angelo has recently published “What Would Hippokrates Do? Classical Reception in the Age of COVID-19” in The Rootcutter, a new science and medicine blog founded by the Society for Ancient Medicine and Pharmacology. This piece explores how anti-vaccination and Covid-denial movements invoked the authority of Hipporates time and time again in support of their causes, examining what makes Hippocrates such an apt figurehead for anti-science advocates and asks what—if anything—historians and Classicists should do about it.
This piece is based on Nicolette’s MA work, as well as a talk that she delivered as part of the SAM panel at the 2022 SCS annual meeting, which was awarded the LCC Graduate Student Paper Award.