Mixed Digital Archive – Homer’s Odyssey (Books V–XII) and Early‑20th‑Century Spigelia Medical Case Studies
Overview
This digital archive aggregates two distinct scholarly collections: (1) a transcription of Homer’s
Odyssey covering Books V through XII, and (2) a set of German‑language medical case notes (c. 1900) documenting homeopathic use of the plant
Spigelia. The materials are organized into thematic groups—
OdysseyBooks, OdysseusWanderingsIllustration, and OdysseyReference_Materials—and are accompanied by linked‑data files (relationships.json, pinax.json) that provide entity identifiers, bibliographic metadata, and provenance information.
Background
The
Odyssey texts are modern English transcriptions of the original 8th‑century BC Greek epic attributed to Homer, intended for digital‑humanities research. Supporting files include a visual illustration of Odysseus’s route and a reference document containing notes and metadata.
The Spigelia case studies originate from early‑20th‑century German homeopathic practice, likely compiled by an unnamed physician who recorded observations from Surinam and Germany. The OCR‑derived transcriptions (cases 66–74) were digitized by the Arke Institute and catalogued with a PINAX record. Both collections were reorganized according to content type to facilitate discovery.
Contents
- Odyssey Collection: Plain‑text files book05.txt–book12.txt (≈ 5,000 words) covering Ulysses’s voyages, encounters, and return to Ithaca; a map‑style illustration of his wanderings; a reference file with ancillary notes.
- Spigelia Medical Case Studies: Scanned image scan_odysseuswanderings1.jpg with OCR transcription of eight case reports (66–74) describing symptoms (headaches, dental pain, sinusitis), Spigelia dosages, and outcomes; a relationships.json file linking 22 entities (e.g., “spigelia”, “case66”); a PINAX catalog entry detailing creator (unknown), institution (Arke Institute), language (German), and subject headings.
- Administrative Files: reorganization-description.txt explaining the thematic grouping; relationships.json and pinax.json providing structured metadata for both collections.
Scope
Geographically the archive spans the mythic Mediterranean (Ithaca, Troy, Ogygia, etc.) for the
Odyssey and the trans‑Atlantic locales of Surinam and Germany for the medical cases. Temporally it covers the 8th‑century BC epic narrative and early‑20th‑century clinical observations. The archive is intended for classicists, digital‑humanities scholars, and historians of medicine seeking searchable, linked‑data‑enhanced primary texts from two disparate domains.