Chiara Thumiger is a classicist and a science historian. In particular, her current interests focus on ancient medicine and mental health, patient history, history of psychiatry, (ancient) disability studies, and the history of the body. She has also worked on other areas of ancient literatures and culture (Greek tragedy, ancient animals, ancient emotions). Her present research project within ROOTS, Ancient Guts, focuses on a key, but comparatively underrated aspect of ancient medicine and anatomy: the gastric area of the body and the process of food ingestion and assimilation. The aim is to explore medical traditions as well as other cultural products to scrutinise ancient and modern understandings of the human body and their social variables.

Keywords: Graeco-Roman medicine, history of psychiatry, Greek and Latin literature, history of emotions, ancient disability