D'Alexandrie à Constantinople : l'acquisition et la transmission du savoir en anatomie et en chirurgie, de la période hellénistique à la période byzantine

This paper proposes to reconstruct the means of acquisition and transmission of anatomical and surgical knowledge in the period from the death of Alexander the Great (323 BC) to the reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (913-959), through the study of archaeological, epigraphic, papyrological and manuscript sources. These testimonies bring to view strategies such as observation, experimentation, analogy and imitation, as well as oral and written teaching, redaction and copy of books (illustrated or not), elaboration of commentaries, abridgments, questionnaires and word-lists. A distinction will be drawn between texts which were addressed to physicians and medical students, on the one hand, those which were destined to philiatroi and to an educated readership, and finally those which might interest copyists and eventually tachygraphists.