Medical community of ancient Rome

[citation needed] One of the cultural ironies of these circumstances is that free men sometimes found themselves in service to the enslaved professional or dignitary, or the power of the state was entrusted to foreigners who had been conquered in battle and were technically slaves.

A signal event in the Roman medical community was the construction of the first Aesculapium (a temple to the god of healing) in the city of Rome, on Tiber Island.

[3] In 293 BC, some officials consulted the Sibylline Books concerning measures to be taken against the plague and were advised to bring Aesculapius from Epidaurus to Rome.

The emperor Claudius[4] had a law passed granting freedom to slaves who had been sent to the institution for cure but were abandoned there.

The consul, Gaius Julius Mento, one of two for the year 431 BC, dedicated a temple to Apollo Medicus ("the healer").

There is no record that these earlier temples possessed the medical facilities associated with an Aesculapium; in that case, the later decision to bring them in presupposes a new understanding that scientific measures could be taken against plague.

The memorable description of plague at Athens during the Peloponnesian War (430 BC) by Thucydides does not mention any measures at all to relieve those stricken with it.

The last known public advocate of this point of view were the railings of Marcus Cato against Greek physicians and his insistence on passing on home remedies to his son.

In the year 219 BC, a vulnerarius, or surgeon, Archagathus, visited Rome from the Peloponnesus and was asked to stay.

The state conferred citizenship on him and purchased him a taberna, or shop, near the compitium Acilii (a crossroads), which became the first officina medica.

There were pharmacopolae (note the female ending), unguentarii and aromatarii, all of which names are easily understood by the English reader.

Jerome Carcopino's study of occupational names in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum turned up 51 medici, 4 medicae (female doctors), an obstetrix ("midwife") and a nutrix ("nurse") in the city of Rome.

Roman doctors of any stature combed the population for persons in any social setting who had an interest in and ability for practicing medicine.

They began their correspondence with the salutation si vales valeo, "if you are well, I am" and ended it with salve, "be healthy".

Of higher status were the chirurgii (which became the English word surgeon), from Greek cheir (hand) and ourgon (work).

That the poor paid a minimal fee for the visit of a medicus is indicated by a wisecrack in Plautus:[9] "It was less than a nummus.

"[10] Many anecdotes exist of doctors negotiating fees with wealthy patients and refusing to prescribe a remedy if agreement was not reached.

Pliny reports[11] that the emperor Claudius fined a physician, Alcon, 180 million sesterces and exiled him to Gaul, but that on his return he made the money back in just a few years.

By chance a law existed at Rome, the Lex Aquilia,[13] passed about 286 BC, which allowed the owners of slaves and animals to seek remedies for damage to their property, either malicious or negligent.

Litigants used this law to proceed against the negligence of medici, such as the performance of an operation on a slave by an untrained surgeon resulting in death or other damage.

While encouraging and supporting the public and private practice of medicine, the Roman government tended to suppress organizations of medici in society.

Compared to the number of books written, not many have survived; for example, Tiberius Claudius Menecrates composed 150 medical works, of which only a few fragments remain.

Some that did remain almost in entirety are the works of Galen, Celsus, Hippocrates and the herbal expert, Pedanius Dioscorides who wrote the 5-volume De materia medica.

The commander of the legion was held responsible for removing the wounded from the field and insuring that they got sufficient care and time to recover.

Authors who have written of Roman military activities before Augustus, such as Livy, mention that wounded troops retired to population centers to recover.

Some were staff of the hospital, which Pseudo-Hyginus mentions in De Munitionibus Castrorum [15] as being set apart from other buildings so that the patients can rest.

The orderlies aren't generally mentioned, but they must have existed, as the patients needed care and the doctors had more important duties.

During his reign, Augustus finally conferred the dignitas equestris, or social rank of knight, on all physicians, public or private.

Those posts worked pretty much as today; a man on his way up the cursus honorum ("ladder of offices", roughly) would command a legion for a certain term and then move on.

From the aid station the wounded went by horse-drawn ambulance to other locations, ultimately to the camp hospitals in the area.