Aulus Cornelius Celsus

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Lithographic fantasy portrait of Celsus (1865)

Aulus Cornelius Celsus (* around 25 BC; † around 50 AD) was a Roman encyclopaedist and one of the most important medical writers of his time. It is controversial whether Celsus worked as a doctor himself. Little is known about his life.

Works

De medicina , edition of 1528

His great encyclopedic work Artes , written during the reign of Emperor Tiberius between 25 and 35 AD, encompassed the “arts and sciences” of agriculture , rhetoric and medicine , probably also military affairs, philosophy and legal theory . Only the part about the healing arts ( De Medicina ) is completely preserved, the other parts are lost or only known in fragments from quotations from later authors.

In presenting medicine, Celsus is mainly based on the teachings of the Greek doctor Hippocrates . Celsus follows the tradition of the Alexandrian school . He was the first to translate numerous medical expressions from Greek into Latin , which is why he is also known as medicorum Cicero .

The four signs of local inflammation that are still valid today were first described by Celsus: Tumor (swelling), Calor (overheating), Rubor (reddening), Dolor (pain). Galen (129-215 n. Chr.) Added as a fifth feature, the functio laesa added (impairment).

The medical part of the encyclopedia consists of eight books:

  • Book 1 gives a history of medicine,
  • Book 2 covers general pathology ,
  • Book 3 the individual diseases,
  • Book 4 those of the body parts,
  • Book 5 and 6 pharmacology ,
  • Book 7 the surgery and
  • Book 8 the bone treatment.

Significance in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Celsus' partial script was known in the West until the 10th century, but was lost in the High and Late Middle Ages. It was not rediscovered until 1426 by Guarino da Verona . It was printed in Venice in 1478. Along with Galen, Celsus was one of the most important sources of medical knowledge in antiquity . Only with the reception of Paracelsus (1500 - para mistakenly understood as "against" here "beyond" after Paracelsus rejected several theories of Celsus and an experimental medicine preferred), the ideas of the four-juice teachings of Hippocrates and Celsus and Galen is increasingly seen as obsolete.

Editions and translations

  • Friedrich Marx (Ed.): Auli Cornelii Celsi quae supersunt (= Corpus medicorum graecorum , 1). Teubner, Leipzig (and Berlin) 1915
  • Aulus Cornelius Celsus: De medicina / The medical science . Introduced, translated and commented by Thomas Lederer. 3 volumes. Scientific Book Society, Darmstadt 2016
  • Aulus Cornelius Celsus: About the science of medicine in eight books . Translated and explained by Eduard Scheller, revised by Walter Frieboes after the text edition by Daremberg , 2nd edition, Braunschweig 1906 (reprint: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1967)
  • Jutta Kollesch , Diethard Nickel : Ancient healing art - selected texts. Reclam, Stuttgart 1994, ISBN 978-3-15-009305-4 .
  • Walter George Spencer (Ed.): Celsus, De Medicina. Loeb, Cambridge 1935–1938 (Latin and English)
  • Werner Albert Golder (Ed.): Celsus and ancient science. De Gruyter, Berlin 2019, ISBN 978-3-11-044165-9 (Latin texts with German translation)
  • Philippe Mudry : La Préface du De Medicina de Celse. Texts, traduction et commentaire. Institut Suisse, Rome 1982 (= Bibliotheca Romana Helvetica. Volume 19).

Honors

In his honor, the Celsus Peak in Antarctica bears his name.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See also Alf Önnerfors : The medical Latin from Celsus to Cassius Felix. In: Wolfgang Haase, Hildegard Temporini (Hrsg.): Rise and decline of the Roman world. Volume II, 37/1, Berlin / New York 1993, pp. 227-392.
  2. ↑ Cels. 3,10.3.
personal data
SURNAME Celsus, Aulus Cornelius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Cornelius Celsus, Aulus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman encyclopedist and medicine writer
DATE OF BIRTH around 25 BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH at 50