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Of the life of Apuleius Cornelius CELSUS nothing is certainly known. He is said to have been a private secretary to Tiberius. He is perhaps the Celsus to whom Horace refers in his epistle to Julius Florus as a compiler of books. He wrote a work on agriculture, including veterinary medicine, which is not extant. His work de Re Medica, which has survived, is a systematic treatise on the medical and surgical art of his time. It contains valuable observations on hygiene, especially on diet and exercise; on disease as modified by season, by climate, and by age; and on prognosis. We gather from it that in the treatment of chronic disease more use was made of external methods, as of baths, massage, etc., than has been common until lately in modern medicine. The tradition of Hippocrates--fine observation, guided by a sense of the unity of the organism--is apparent through this part of the work. On the surgical side we see the result of Alexandrian research. The description given of the bones, muscles, and other organs, though too brief for the requirements of modern surgery, and indeed less adequate than would have been given by a pupil of Galen, are yet fairly adequate. Practical surgery had made more progress at this time than is commonly supposed. Such operations, for instance, as those for the extraction of stone, for couching of cataract, and for trepanning, closely resembled those of modern surgery. The treatise is written in pure Latin of the best period.
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| This biography is
reprinted from The New Calendar of Great Men. Ed. Frederic
Harrison. London: Macmillan and Co., 1920. |
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