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
Famous quotes containing the words medicine, ancient and/or rome:
“No medicine in the world can do thee good;
In thee there is not half an hour’s life.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“An ancient bridge, and a more ancient tower,
A farmhouse that is sheltered by its wall,
An acre of stony ground,
Where the symbolic rose can break in flower,
Old ragged elms, old thorns innumerable....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“I am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is. How many times must we say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, or the Kanaka in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)