Roman History of Medicine

Roman History of Medicine

• The basis of much of the information on Roman medicine comes from the writings of Cornelius Celsus and Caius Pliny the Elder.
• Early in the Roman Empire, there wasn't a separate medical profession; the head of the household typically knew herbal cures and medicine to treat family illnesses, according to Pliny.
• Romans emphasized public health, linking hygiene to disease.
• They encouraged public health facilities and used the army to advance their healthcare system.

Alexandria

• Social bathing was important to the towns.

Roman Medical Approaches

• Roman doctors commonly use exercise, changes in diet, and herbal medications.
• When treatments were not working or were too expensive, people turned to the gods for help.
• In 295 BCE, a plague in Rome resulted in the recruitment of the Greek god of medicine.
• The Romans hoped that the power of the medical shrines in Greece could be transferred to Rome to stop the plaque.

Asclepios

• According to legend, the Greek medical deity Asclepios, or Aesculap in Latin, was introduced to Rome in 295 BCE.
• He arrived as a snake sent from the temple of Epidauros.

Roman Practitioners

• Most Roman practitioners were freed or enslaved.
• Physicians were of Greek, Egyptian, and Jewish origin.
• Each military unit had specific quantity of physicians with special experience in medical care, likely simple soldiers.
• Physicians were often trained by salaried teachers with a school curriculum that included courses beyond medicine.

Archagathos of Sparta

• The first known Greek physician to come to Rome.
• Initially, he was honored with citizenship and the title "wound healer" for his surgical procedures, but then later called "the butcher".
• He played a role in the acceptance of Greek practitioners in the first century B.C.
• Archagathos of Sparta abandoned the doctrine of the four humours.
• He conceptualized the body as composed of atoms in motion, with body liquids flowing between them.

Soranus of Ephesus

• A contributor to medicine in Rome during the second century C.E.
• His area of focus was obstetrics and diseases of women.
• Regarded as the best gynaecologist of antiquity.

Aelius Galenus or Galen

• A Greek physician and biologist, known as "the Prince of Physicians," was a prolific medical writer.
• He was a physician to Roman Emperors.
• Galen used the humoural theory from early Greek times.
• Galen was known for the large-scale use of medications, gathering medicinal plants and preparing his own prescriptions.
• He uses many ingredients and referred to them as "Galenicals" meaning unrefined, vegetable drugs, or crude extracts of plants used medicinally.
• Galenicals mean nearly the same as "pharmaceutical" in the context of drug preparation in many countries.
• Galen described veins and arteries as separate trees, differentiated sensory from motor nerves, and examined the physiological actions of the chest cavity.
• He elucidated the effects of spinal cord transection
• Galen proved that the heart could beat without nerves.
• Galen described the human heart as the body's heat source and as having two chambers.
• Galen associated the right chamber with the liver, stating it contains "nutritive blood" made and consumed by the liver.
• The left chamber was involved in producing vital spirits distributed by arteries.

Conclusion of Roman History of Medicine

• First doctors in Rome were Greek.
• Rome was the first nation to develop a preventative approach to public health.
• Many still relied on the gods for cures, however despite medicine and public health advancements.
• The use of medicinal plants was common.

Ancient African Medicine

• Traditional medicine was the dominant medical system for millions of people in Africa prior to colonization.
• Domestication of plants and animals began in Africa by -4000 BC.
• Africans relied on traditional healers for the cure of diseases.
• Diagnosis was reached through spiritual means and by incantations to connect to the spirit world.
• Illness caused by an imbalance between the spiritual and social world
• External sources of illness were investigated.

Medical treatments

• Herbal therapies
• Bathing
• Massage
• Surgical procedure
• Induced vomiting

Medical Knowledge in Africa

-The Mano of Liberia had names for most major organs; identified normal and abnormal anatomy.

• The Banyoro of Uganda are renowned for their surgical skills.
• Autopsies were done by the Banyoro of Uganda and the Likundu of Central Africa on patients dying of unknown causes.
• A Hausa (Nigeria) manoeuvre tested for impotence.

East Africa

• Masai surgeons treated pleurisy and pneumonitis by drilling holes and partially collapsing the lung.
• Traditional African cultures had abundant materia medica.
• The Zulus knew the medicinal uses of 700 plants.
• Traditional healers in Africa effectively treated intestinal parasites, vomiting, skin ulcers, rashes, convulsions, tumors, venereal disease, bronchitis, conjunctivitis, urethral stricture, and many other complaints.
• Both the organic and spiritual aspects of disease were considered.
• Maintenance of a balance between the spiritual and material is needed for sound health
• The western mind may think of conceptions of witchcraft, sorcery, and magic when you talk about indigenous African medical systems.

Conclusion to Africa Section

• Little information is written about African practise of medicine in literature.
• Traditional medicine encompasses the knowledge, skills, and practices for maintaining health and preventing and treating illness.