Ancient Science · Part 20 · Maps · B1–B2
Celsus and Dioscorides: Roman Medicine, Surgery and the Book of Plants
Part 20 of Ancient Science: Celsus, writing in Latin in Philo’s own lifetime, described the whole of medicine, from diet to delicate surgery, and the four signs of inflammation that doctors still learn. Dioscorides described six hundred plants and what they were used for, and his book was copied for fifteen hundred years. Sophia shows what worked, what did not, and what was dangerous. It was used to, it was used for, with Philo, Sophia, Marcos and Demetria.
Tonight, two men who wrote the medical books of the Roman world. One of them, Celsus, is writing in Latin in Rome right now, in your own lifetime, Philo.
That is why Celsus is so unusual. And the other, Dioscorides, an army doctor, will describe six hundred plants and what they were used for. His book will be copied for fifteen hundred years.
Some did. Some did nothing. Some were dangerous. Let me show you.
Rome and the eastern Mediterranean, about 25 – 70 CE
Aulus Cornelius Celsus wrote a great encyclopedia in Latin, on farming, war, rhetoric, philosophy, law and medicine. Only the eight books On Medicine survive. They were written in the reign of the Emperor Tiberius, around 25 to 35 CE. Scholars still argue about whether Celsus was a doctor himself or a learned gentleman writing about medicine.
Celsus begins with a history of medicine, from Hippocrates to the anatomists of Alexandria. Then he covers diet, diseases, drugs and surgery. He describes operations for removing stones from the bladder and for treating cataracts of the eye, and the repair of damaged noses and ears. He gives the four signs of inflammation that doctors still learn: redness, heat, swelling and pain.
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