Phrenitis is known as an affliction located in the diaphragm, causing temporary attacks accompanied by a major episode of fever, involving outbreaks of mental disorders such as hallucinations, anxiety or forgetfulness. The consequences of it could be lethal. As a disease, it is prominent in the Corpus Hippocraticum. Yet, the authoritative lexicon of ancient medicine only devotes a short article to it, with a bibliography that mentions but a few titles, regarding phrenitis in Caelius Aurelianus and in the Hippocratic Corpus (K.-H. Leven and M. Stamatu, ‘Phrenitis’, in K.-H. Leven [ed.], Antike Medizin. Ein Lexikon [2005], c. 700–1). The task that lay before T. was thus huge: to systematically compile and discuss the source evidence of a label that survived in Western pathology for a period of 24 centuries. In anticipation, it should be said that she does so with great verve.

The preface and the discussion of methodological issues (Chapter 1) offer all readers could hope for: the name of the illness and the traditional body parts related to it, a status quaestionis of research and remarks on the technicality of the term (other than mania or melancholia, it only turns up in later times as material for comic exaggeration, in medical commonplaces or in erudite general remarks). Classical and Hellenistic medicine, with strong emphasis on the Hippocratic Corpus, are the subject of Chapter 2. Localisation around the chest or the head, the originary nature of phrenitis as a winter chest ailment and the strong technicality of the term are features that emerge. Delocalising and holistic approaches, marginalising the problem of the afflicted parts and instead looking at the patients as they are, not the disease as a construct, are typical elements of both Asclepiades and Caelius Aurelianus on the one hand, and Celsus on the other (Chapter 3). At the same time, other physicians indulged in theoretical aetiological models, in complex discussions of the matter as found in Galen (Chapter 4). T. then turns the attention to the phrenitic patients in the first to the sixth centuries, with Chapter 5 being of major importance to socio-cultural historians: therapeutic measures; the pains of fever; the effects on senses and the damage to cognitive faculties; neurological symptoms such as agitation or insomnia; consequences for the voice and the tongue; urine, sweat and other secretions; pulse and respiration; thirst and drinking; psychology and behaviour are all dealt with in great detail, thanks to copious quotations of excerpts with transliterated Greek terms, always carefully contextualised and commented on. The same applies to T.'s treatment of neighbouring diseases (mania stands out, but also synkopē was important); of predispositions and profiling of patients (diet and lifestyle are mentioned, though not systematically foregrounded); cure and prognosis (both medication and psychotherapeutics). Literary scholars, but also those studying ancient law, science, philosophy, theology and hagiography will find great profit in Chapter 6, which deals with phrenitics in larger intellectual life and society. Equally impressive is T.'s mastery of the medieval sources in Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic (Chapter 7). She discerns distinctive features such as the concept of swelling and tumour; the strong emphasis on texture; a progression towards physiology and anatomy, away from psychology; a flexible taxonomy that distinguished many sub-groups of phrenitis; next to some eccentric elements. Chapter 8 is the counterpart of Chapter 6, as it deals with the concept of phrenitis in the collective imagination at a variety of levels. So-called metaphors of phrenitis turn up in various sorts of philosophical and moral treatises, in biographies, in folk portrayals, astrology, (canon) law. The sixteenth to nineteenth centuries are the subject of Chapter 9. Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, doctors indulged in detailed clinical observation of the disease, for which they even discerned an infective epidemic variant, plus veterinary parallels. By the turn of the twentieth century somatisation and anatomisation took over in clinical pathology. Meningo-encephalitis, delirium tremens and stress marked the ‘death’ of phrenitis (Chapter 10).

The book is concluded by three masterful appendices. The first is on the so-called ‘sun disease’, for which high fevers with neurological consequences were linked to excessive heath and exposure to the sun. T.'s careful treatment never denies corporeality (sunstroke may sometimes be behind this), but at the same time she shies away from simplistic retrospective diagnosis. Appendix 2 on nomenclature and dictionaries is a true delight for philologists and historians of medicine, while the synoptic table of appendix 3, covering phrenitis from the fifth century bce to the twentieth century ce, is an invaluable resource for anyone embarking on the study of the phenomenon. The thorough bibliography and indexes again testify to flawless editing and great care being spent on the publication of the volume.

For future generations of scholars it will be difficult to add anything significant or to improve on T.'s research regarding phrenitis. This is indeed the definitive book on a subject that for a long time has been waiting for a nuanced, balanced and at the same time exhaustive treatment, testifying to formidable erudition. By its breadth of knowledge on offer the volume will also speak to a wider audience than scholars of the ancient world. This is a monumentum aere perennius, for decades and generations to come.