On October 27. 2014, Sarah Yeomans gave a thought-provoking lecture at The Explorers Club headquarters. She is an archeologist who specializes in the Early Imperial period of ancient Rome. Yeomans is also an adjunct professor of Religious Studies at West Virginia University. With an extensive background on ancient Roman culture, she spoke passionately about life in the ancient Roman world, in terms of culture as well as health and medicine. Her lecture focused specifically on famine and disease epidemics, such as The Antonine Plague of the 2nd Century AD. Yeomans began her lecture by explaining how war, injury, disease, and environmental effects on agriculture are factors that human beings have faced since ancient times and will continue to face in the future. She then spoke about the significance of medicine in increasing the human life span, which was much shorter for the ancient Romans.

Sarah Yeomans’ lecture was based primarily on her current research on ancient Roman medicine and the technology that they had available to them. She is also interested in how they reacted to epidemics. What was most fascinating about her talk was her description of an archeological excavation that she had been working on to provide evidence of the medical-related technological developments that the ancient Romans had come up with. As a polytheistic society, they believed that Apollo controlled disease, but the ancient Romans set up hospitals, of which Yeomans was able to show images. From a scientific perspective, the method of research that she and other archeologists utilize is not too different from the Scientific Method. She mentioned how she came up with the hypothesis that medicine and culture had a significant correlation for the ancient Romans. However, instead of setting up an experiment, she collected data as any scientist would to draw conclusions between variables. Yeomans’ source of data came from the excavation of an ancient Roman hospital, which exemplified the technology that they used to overcome disease. This data was correlated to disease epidemics that arose during the time period as well.

Other images from the excavation included the tools that surgeons and doctors used in ancient Rome to prevent the spread of infection and sterilization techniques, which looked very similar to the same instruments that physicians use to this day. The scalpels appeared to be the same as they do today, but back then, they were used to remove debris and necrotic tissue from patients. Yeomans’ excavation was actually the first one to include such tools, which allow her and other scientists to relate when those instruments were crafted to the time period of the disease epidemics that took place. This idea segued into the Antonine Plague of the 2nd Century AD. This plague took place during the golden age of imperial Rome when Marcus Aurelius was emperor. It spread to Rome from the East where measles and smallpox had already been circulating in Mesopotamia and China. Yeomans gave an in-depth analysis of how mapping these viruses’ spread can help scientists study them in order to prevent future epidemics. The cultural background against which these diseases were prevalent plays a role in how different medicinal techniques, such as vaccines rather than herbal treatments, would be accepted or rejected. Therefore, it is of utmost importance for scientists to understand the cultures in which these diseases take place, especially in the field of medicine, since societies develop values, which science should not undermine. The example that was brought up in the lecture was that ancient Romans would build sculptures for the deities when they contracted smallpox instead of going to the hospitals that were available. Although smallpox has been declared eradicated, if such a serious epidemic were to take place in the modern world, a few people who are strongly tied to their fate may refuse to see physicians. This is a cultural issue that scientists should work with archeologists and sociologists in order to overcome.

This lecture would have been perfect for an individual who seeks to combine the natural sciences with the social sciences. Sarah Yeomans was extremely informative about ancient Roman culture, but she also appealed to the world of medicine and how medicine has evolved, which ultimately expanded the human life span. However, she mostly reported the trends of mortality rates and disease epidemics in ancient Rome rather than speaking about the hard-core science of how genetics and environmental factors also contribute to disease and death. Therefore, the lecture could have been improved if Yeomans collaborated with a microbiologist who studies gene mutations and how diseases, like plagues, affect the human body because it would have made sense to start on a smaller scale before discussing a larger population of people in relation to disease and cultural factors. However, the main point of the lecture was that it is important to discuss the health of ancient peoples as well as the progression of medical discoveries in order to make even more discoveries for the future to keep up the health of future generations.