Cassius (medic)

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Cassius was a famous doctor who worked in Rome during the time of the emperors Augustus and Tiberius .

Life

Little is known about the life of Cassius. Pliny the Elder mentions him among the most famous doctors in Rome. These treated the leading men and received a considerable annual income of around 250,000 sesterces . Celsus honors him as one of the most talented doctors of his time.

Act as a doctor

In the Proemium of his work De Medicina, Celsus depicts the spiritual currents of medicine of his time. There is great dissent between doctors who start from general theories and those for whom the individual observation of the individual patient is more important. Cassius is one of the careful observers. As Celsus describes, he asks his patients the beginning of their suffering - in this case an intoxication ( ebrietas ) - and arranges the treatment accordingly; treatment consisted of sleeping, sweating, and drinking cold water.

Celsus later describes a painful irritation of the appendix ( caecum ). Cassius, on the other hand, has developed a drug called colicon . The ingredients are Kostwurz, anise, Bibergeil, parsley, pepper, poppy seed juice, bulrush, myrrh and nard. Celsus gives another Cassius prescription for stomach pain ( colice ).

It speaks for the fame of Cassius that Scribonius Largus , who was writing at the same time, also included Cassius' prescription for stomach pain in his Compositiones collection , not without mentioning that it was used in the highest circles. In addition, Scribonius Largus passed on an antidote of the doctor, which not only helps against poison, snakebites and bites of rabid dogs, but also against coughs.

swell

  • Celsus: De Medicina , with an English Translation by WG Spencer, London.
  • C. Pliny Secundus d. Ä .: Natural history , book XXIX. Edited and translated by Roderich König in collaboration with Joachim Hopp, Darmstadt.
  • Scribonius Largus: Compositiones , edidit S. Sconocchia, Leipzig

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Max Wellmann: Cassius 3rd In: Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswwissenschaft (RE). Volume III, 2, Stuttgart 1899, column 1678 f.
  2. ↑ Pliny the Elder Ä., Naturkunde , Book XXIX, V, 7
  3. ^ Celsus, De Medicina , Proemium , 70
  4. ^ Celsus, De Medicina , IV, 21
  5. ^ Scribonius Largus, Compositiones , CXX
  6. ^ Scribonius Largus, Compositiones , CLXXVI
personal data
SURNAME Cassius
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Mediciners
DATE OF BIRTH 1st century BC Chr.
DATE OF DEATH 1st century BC BC or 1st century