Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine | Page 2

factor in promoting Altruism
CHAPTER XII.
GYMNASIA AND BATHS. 143
Gymnastics--Vitruvius--Opinions of Ancient Physicians on Gymnastics--The Athletes--The Baths--Description of Baths at Pompeii--Therm?--Baths of Caracalla
CHAPTER XIII.
SANITATION. 155
Water-supply--Its extent--The Aqueducts--Distribution in city--Drainage--Disposal of the Dead--Cremation and Burial--Catacombs--Public Health Regulations
APPENDIX.
FEES IN ANCIENT TIMES 162

ILLUSTRATIONS.
Asklepios, the ancient Greek Deity of Healing frontispiece
Machaon (Son of Asklepios), the first Greek Military Surgeon, attending to the wounded Menelaus p. 17
PLATE I.--Bust of ?sculapius face p. 13
" II.--Hygeia, the Greek Deity of Health " 15
" III.--Facade of Temple of Asklepios, restored (Delfrasse) " 18
" IV.--Health Temple, restored (Caton) " 20

OUTLINES OF Greek and Roman Medicine
CHAPTER I.
EARLY ROMAN MEDICINE.
Origin of Healing--Temples--Lectisternium--Temple of ?sculapius--Archagathus--Domestic Medicine--Greek Doctors--Cloaca Maxima--Aqueducts--State of the early Empire.
The origin of the healing art in Ancient Rome is shrouded in uncertainty. The earliest practice of medicine was undoubtedly theurgic, and common to all primitive peoples. The offices of priest and of medicine-man were combined in one person, and magic was invoked to take the place of knowledge. There is much scope for the exercise of the imagination in attempting to follow the course of early man in his efforts to bring plants into medicinal use. That some of the indigenous plants had therapeutic properties was often an accidental discovery, leading in the next place to experiment and observation. Cornelius Agrippa, in his book on occult philosophy, states that mankind has learned the use of many remedies from animals. It has even been suggested that the use of the enema was discovered by observing a long-beaked bird drawing up water into its beak, and injecting the water into the bowel. The practice of healing, crude and imperfect, progressed slowly in ancient times and was conducted in much the same way in Rome, and among the Egyptians, the Jews, the Chaldeans, Hindus and Parsees, and the Chinese and Tartars.
The Etruscans had considerable proficiency in philosophy and medicine, and to this people, as well as to the Sabines, the Ancient Romans were indebted for knowledge. Numa Pompilius, of Sabine origin, who was King of Rome 715 B.C., studied physical science, and, as Livy relates, was struck by lightning and killed as the result of his experiments, and it has therefore been inferred that these experiments related to the investigation of electricity. It is surprising to find in the Twelve Tables of Numa references to dental operations. In early times, it is certain that the Romans were more prone to learn the superstitions of other peoples than to acquire much useful knowledge. They were cosmopolitan in medical art as in religion. They had acquaintance with the domestic medicine known to all savages, a little rude surgery, and prescriptions from the Sibylline books, and had much recourse to magic. It was to Greece that the Romans first owed their knowledge of healing, and of art and science generally, but at no time did the Romans equal the Greeks in mental culture.
Pliny states that "the Roman people for more than six hundred years were not, indeed, without medicine, but they were without physicians." They used traditional family recipes, and had numerous gods and goddesses of disease and healing. Febris was the god of fever, Mephitis the god of stench; Fessonia aided the weary, and "Sweet Cloacina" presided over the drains. The plague-stricken appealed to the goddess Angeronia, women to Fluonia and Uterina. Ossipaga took care of the bones of children, and Carna was the deity presiding over the abdominal organs.
Temples were erected in Rome in 467 B.C. in honour of Apollo, the reputed father of ?sculapius, and in 460 B.C. in honour of ?sculapius of Epidaurus. Ten years later a pestilence raged in the city, and a temple was built in honour of the Goddess Salus. By order of the Sibylline books, in 399 B.C., the first lectisternium was held in Rome to combat a pestilence. This was a festival of Greek origin. It was a time of prayer and sacrifice; the images of the gods were laid upon a couch, and a meal was spread on a table before them. These festivals were repeated as occasion demanded, and the device of driving a nail into the temple of Jupiter to ward off "the pestilence that walketh in darkness," and "destruction that wasteth at noonday" was begun 360 B.C. As evidence of the want of proper surgical knowledge, the fact is recorded by Livy that after the Battle of Sutrium (309 B.C.) more soldiers died of wounds than were killed in action. The worship of ?sculapius was begun by the Romans 291 B.C., and the Egyptian Isis and Serapis were also invoked for their healing powers.
At the time of the great plague in Rome (291 B.C.), ambassadors were sent to Epidaurus, in accordance with the advice of the Sibylline books, to seek aid from ?sculapius. They returned with a statue of the god, but as their boat