Medicine in ancient Rome combined various techniques using different tools and rituals. Ancient Roman medicine included a number of specializations such as internal medicine, ophthalmology and urology. The Romans favoured the prevention of diseases over the cures of them; unlike in Greek society where health was a personal matter, public health was encouraged by the government at the time; they built bath houses and aqueducts to pipe water to the cities. Many of the larger cities, such as Rome, boasted an advanced sewage system, the likes of which would not be seen in the Western world again until the late 17th century onward. However, the Romans did not fully understand the involvement of germs in disease.
Roman surgeons carried a tool kit which contained forceps, scalpels, catheters and arrow extractors. The tools had various uses and were boiled in hot water before each use. In surgery, surgeons used painkillers such as opium and scopolamine (from henbane) for treatments, and acetum (the acid in vinegar) was used to wash wounds.
Read more about Medicine In Ancient Rome: Greek Influences On Roman Medicine, Surgical Instruments
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“No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour’s life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“In view of the fact that the number of people living too long has risen catastrophically and still continues to rise.... Question: Must we live as long as modern medicine enables us to?... We control our entry into life, it is time we began to control our exit.”
—Max Frisch (1911–1991)
“Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate
With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes
That sparkling blaz’d, his other Parts besides
Prone on the Flood, extended long and large
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr’d on Jove,
Briarios or Typhon, whom the Den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast
Leviathan,”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“The old world stands serenely behind the new, as one mountain yonder towers behind another, more dim and distant. Rome imposes her story still upon this late generation.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)