Overview

Some Roman doctors (eg Galen) maintained the Greek practice of clinical observation of people who were sick, and Galen claimed that he never made a mistake in diagnosis or prognosis. However, medicine failed to progress in this area, as different doctors stuck to their differing theories of disease. The Roman writer Pliny complained about the "quarrelsome consultations" of doctors at the bedside of patients.

The Romans did, however, have a large number of practical, traditional remedies for disease. Pliny recommended substances such as unwashed wool (for sores), yolk of eggs (for dysentery) and boiled liver (for sore eyes). The Roman Army doctor Dioscorides assembled a list of some 600 herbal cures in his 'Herbarium' (a book that was used for the next 1,000 years).

Since many of the doctors in Rome were Greeks, who believed that illness was caused by an imbalance of the four humours [Four humours: Four bodily fluids - yellow bile, black bile, blood and phlegm - used in ancient times to analyse and describe people's state of health. ], many of their cures tried to rebalance the humours or restore the natural heat of the patient.

Galen advocated the healing power of nature and the use of opposites - eg hot pepper to cure a cold and (cool) cucumber to cure a fever.

doctor using cold cucumber to cure a fever

Like the Greeks, many ordinary Romans with severe or chronic diseases still appealed to their gods for a cure. In 293BC the Romans built an asklepion [Asklepion: Healing centre of the ancient Greeks, based around a belief in the god Asklepios. People would stay there when they were ill. ] in Rome, and took there one of the sacred snakes from Epidaurus.

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