There are records in his writings of many journeys, and busy
with his practice in dissections and experiments he passed a long and
energetic life, dying, according to most authorities, in the year 200
A.D.
A sketch of the state of medicine in Rome is given by Celsus in the
first of his eight books, and he mentions the names of many of the
leading practitioners, particularly Asclepiades, the Bithynian, a man
of great ability, and a follower of the Alexandrians, who regarded all
disease as due to a disturbed movement of the atoms. Diet, exercise,
massage and bathing were his great remedies, and his motto--tuto, cito
et jucunde--has been the emulation of all physicians. How important
a role he and his successors played until the time of Galen may be
gathered from the learned lectures of Sir Clifford Allbutt(32) on "Greek
Medicine in Rome" and from Meyer-Steineg's "Theodorus Priscianus und die
romische Medizin."(33) From certain lay writers we learn that it was the
custom for popular physicians to be followed on their rounds by crowds
of students. Martial's epigram (V, ix) is often referred to:
Languebam: sed tu comitatus protinus ad me
Venisti centum, Symmache, discipulis.
Centum me tegigere manus Aquilone gelatae
Non habui febrem, Symmache, nunc habeo.
Pages:
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124