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Medicines and Treatments

Roman doctors used many different types of treatments. They knew the benefits of regular visits to the baths, fresh air and exercise. They also knew the effects of food on people's health, so they often advised their patients to change their diet.

Most of their knowledge of medicine was gained from the Greeks. A Greek doctor whose name was Hippocrates, recorded all the illnesses he encountered and the treatments he used. These records bcame the basis of the Greek and Roman medical education. It was during the Republic times when medical schools opened in Rome and organised medical education formally began. Some doctors were trained in army hospitals. As the Roman medical methods were often a combination of scientific treatments and religious rituals, doctors had to learn many skills.

The Romans believed that their gods had special powers to heal illnesses. To attain these cure, many Romans relied on superstition and spells, while others performed religious rituals. Even the doctors linked religion and medicine, and used these treatments also, because they too held these beliefs.

Throughout the Roman world, temples were made for Aesculapius, the god of medicine, and his daughter Hygieia, the goddess of healing. People believed that their dreams might tell them cures for their illnesses, and they slept in shrines hoping that it might happen. If they were really cured, the people gave offerings. The offerings may have been a stone model of the part of the body that was cured, or they might have been statues of the gods themselves.

As there were no anaesthetics, operations were awfully painful. Wine was used as a pain-killer, but it wasn't very effective.

The medicines were made from minerals, animal substances and plants. Here are some examples:

• special herbs were mixed with wine to create a mixture to treat coughs and chest problems
• ointments made with lead, zinc or iron were used as a cure for eye infection. Often the small bars of metal were stamped with the name of the maker
• skin problems and snake bites were treated with the sap from certain trees.
• Sometimes ingredients were ground with a mortar and pestle and were made into pills.

We know so much because of all the documents written on medicine that have been found. For example, a catalogue of 600 plants and 100 drugs that had been tested on patients was discovered. It had been written by an army doctor named Discorides. There wer remains of medicine found as well, but it was not possible to work out the substances.

Only the very rich could afford to have personal physicians to care for them. The other rich could afford to pay for the doctor to visit their house. The ordinary people had to go to hospital by themselves. But in 100 AD a state health service began, where there were a number of doctors in town who were paid by tax monies and accepted fees, but treated the poor for free. Some doctors had quiet medical examination rooms, but other had ordinary shops on the streets as consulting rooms.

Here is an external link to more information on The History of Nedicine in Ancient Times.