Overview

Through their work with gladiators and wounded soldiers, Roman doctors became experts at practical first aid and external surgery.

They could do a large number of simple external operations, such as removing polyps up the nose and goitres from the neck.

Ancient Roman doctor treating a patient's goitre

We know that the Romans developed new surgical and midwifery instruments (though they look barbaric to us nowadays). They also developed the Caesarean section to remove a baby from the womb (although it is not true that Julius Caesar was born this way). In those times the mother always died - Roman Caesarean sections were usually performed to save the baby of a woman who had died during childbirth.

We have no evidence that Roman surgeons successfully operated inside the body. Roman doctors did not have anaesthetics, and had only herbal antiseptics - so successful surgical operations would have been extremely difficult for them to perform.

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