This monograph begins with the contention that medical themes are “more integrated into the work of Euripides than scholars have hitherto noticed” and states the aim to “foreground” some of the “shared cultural assumptions in … the medical and tragic genres” (pp. 11, 14); it is concluded that these writings “reveal … two sides of the same coin” (p. 197). Eight plays are discussed in some detail: seven of Euripides (Hippolytus, Ion, Medea, Orestes, Heracles, Phoenissae and Bacchae) and one of Aeschylus (Prometheus Bound). The arrangement is in two parts, the first entitled ‘Healers and the heroics of medical technê’ and the second ‘From cause to cure’; in each part an exposition of Hippocratic ideas is followed by a play by play analysis, tracing the presentation of the same or similar concepts. In all this there are many insights. However, although the general thrust of the argument—that there is common ground between the genres—is clearly correct, much in the detailed analysis is open to question. It is amply demonstrated that medical and tragic texts share a common stock of ideas, expressed in a common language; but there are different ways of viewing this apparent overlap. There are problems at all levels. For example: in broad terms, the label “healer”—which is only loosely apposite to the very different dramatic characters Prometheus (described as philanthropist or culture-bringer), Phaedra's nurse in Hippolytus (seen as charlatan) and Medea (designated healer who harms)—is pushed to the limits when not one but two unsuccessful “healers”, Jocasta and Polyneices, are isolated in Phoenissae; more narrowly, we may see Phaedra's nurse as a proponent of the bromide meden agan “nothing to excess” rather than as “a believer in the balanced mixture school of health” (p. 54); more narrowly still the verb antlein “drain” is an extremely common nautical, rather than medical, metaphor (p. 79, n. 71) and the verb semainein “reveal” is too ordinary to be given a definite medical connotation (p. 69; cf. asema “without signs”, p. 36). Such problems are intrinsic to a comparative study of this kind. Uncertainties of chronology compound the difficulties of comparison. Perhaps the title of the book ought to be Hippocratic medicine AND the making of Euripidean tragedy to allow for mutual interaction, rather than a one-way process of influence. (The date of the introduction of Asclepius worship to Athens, relevant at p. 24, is uncertain also.)

Many Hippocratic works are adduced for purposes of comparison and the summary of their content in the two short introductory chapters is sensible and thorough. The choice of the Hippocratic treatise Breaths as a starting point (p. 5, cf. 38) might have been more fully justified in terms of apparent Hippocratic attribution in Anonymus Londinensis, a papyrus relevant also to medical content in Plato (discussed pp. 27–9, but oddly without reference to the dialogue Timaeus). The usefulness of the book is enhanced by the addition of an index nominum et rerum and an index locorum. Proof-reading has been thorough and I noted very few misprints, except in the Greek quotations, where there are many errors (not all minor). There are occasional lapses in transliteration also: phlebs should be phleps (p. 70 and n. 52), Cratus if not Kratos should at least be Cratos (p. 44) and parados should be parodos (p. 183).

In sum, this is a meritorious work. Though much of the literary analysis should carry a health warning, the author's wide reach in the Hippocratic Corpus is matched by evident familiarity with the full tragic canon and by impressive command of an extensive bibliography.