Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine

Outlines of Greek and Roman Medicine, according to its preface, aims to give merely a general outline of the most important stages in the advancement of the healing art in the two Empires. The text says that Mephitis was the god of stench and that Fessonia aided the weary.

The text records temples erected in Rome in 467 B.C. in honour of Apollo, the reputed father of Æsculapius, and in 460 B.C. in honour of Æsculapius of Epidaurus. The text says that Livy records, as evidence of the want of proper surgical knowledge, that after the Battle of Sutrium in 309 B.C. more soldiers died of wounds than were killed in action. The text says that Scribonius Largus was physician to Claudius, accompanied him to Britain, wrote several medical books, and is reputed to have used electricity for the relief of headaches. The text says that Pliny wrote of the Claudian aqueduct that anyone who will carefully calculate the quantity of the public supply of water will confess that there never was anything more wonderful in the whole world.