Elemental Theory And the Concept of Pneuma In the Pneumatist Medicine and Stoicism

As well as in philosophy, a plurality of schools existed in Ancient Greek medicine in the era of Hellenism. One of them was the Pneumatist school founded by Athenaeus of Attalia, a disciple of a prominent Middle Stoic, Posidonius. Traditionally, the Pneumatist school of medicine has been understood as adopting some of the Stoic physics and psychology, and adjusting it to medicine based on Hippocrates and other previous doctors.
This lecture will analyse one particular concept central to Stoic physics and present also in the Pneumatist school of medicine, namely the elemental theory and the concept of pneuma related to it. The lecture aims to point out some similarities and dissimilarities on this topic between the Stoics and the Pneumatists, or, in other words, to find alterations to the Stoic elemental theory and the concept of pneuma made by the Pneumatists.