Dermatology in Ancient Rome: Medical ingredients in Ovid's "Remedies for female faces".

BACKGROUND: In Roman medicine, face packs, plasters, unguents, and peelings were part of the therapy of dermatological diseases, but also served cosmetic purposes. Ancient medical textbooks inform us about the ingredients for these applications. Beyond medical literature, other genres contain information about dermatological applications. The Roman poet Ovid (43 BC-17 AD) wrote a didactic poem recording five recipes for topical applications for female faces (Medicamina faciei femineae). Researchers debate the relation of Ovid's poem to Roman medicine: Does the poem contain therapeutical or cosmetical information, or is it mere belles lettres? AIMS: The objective of the paper is to conduct a medico-historical classification of Ovid's poem by determining whether the ingredients of Ovid's recipes were thought to be effective by the authors of Roman medical textbooks. METHODS: First, translation and identification of the ingredients were carried out. Second, comparison of the ingredients' functions regarding the therapy of dermatological diseases in two important Roman medical textbooks was realized. For this purpose, several commentaries on the text of Ovid were used and a keyword search in Roman medical textbooks was performed. RESULTS: Ovid's five recipes contain 23 ingredients. All ingredients can be found in medical textbooks. We find that 14 of these ingredients serve cosmetic purposes, 17 serve the therapy of dermatological diseases, and 13 serve both. CONCLUSION: Ovid's recipes contain drugs that were considered effective by the authors of Roman medical textbooks. These drugs were recommended both for therapeutic and cosmetic purposes by the same authors. Therefore, Ovid's didactic poem is not mere belles lettres, but contains serious medical and cosmetical information. As far as we know, it is the first Roman text that contains dermatological recipes.

Historical perspectives on advertising and the meme that personal oral hygiene prevents dental caries.

The consensus of a leading scientific panel in 1930 was that oral hygiene products could not prevent dental caries. Their view was that dental caries prevention required the proper mineralisation of teeth and that vitamin D could achieve this goal. Over a hundred subsequent controlled trials, conducted over seven decades, largely confirmed that this scientific panel had made the right decisions. They had, in 1930, when it comes to dental caries, correctly endorsed vitamin D products as dental caries prophylactics and oral hygiene products as cosmetics. And yet, despite this consistent scientific evidence for close to a century, an opposing conventional wisdom emerged which thrives to this day: oral hygiene habits (without fluoride) protect the teeth from dental caries, and vitamin D plays no role in dental caries prevention. This historical analysis explores whether persistent advertising can deeply engrain memes on dental caries prevention which conflict with controlled trial results. The question is raised whether professional organisations, with a dependence on advertising revenues, can become complicit in amplifying advertised health claims which are inconsistent with the principles of evidence-based medicine.