Little or nothing has hitherto been written by archÆologists regarding the medical staff of the Roman army. Indeed, in none of our common works on Roman antiquities, as in those of Rosini, Kennet, Adam, Smith, Ramsay, etc., is there any allusion whatever made to the question, whether or not the Roman troops were furnished with medical officers. In one anonymous work on Roman antiquities, translated from the French, and published in London in 1750, the subject is referred to, the author stating that during the commonwealth there were no physicians in the Roman armies; and he adds that, even under the Emperors, “it does not appear there were any physicians in the armies, as there are surgeons in ours.”367 Nor does there exist, as far as I am aware, in the Roman classics, any very distinct allusion to the matter. I have also, in vain, searched among Roman medical authors, and among the writings of the Greek physicians who practised at Rome, for any direct notices, relative to the medical or surgical care of the numerous and scattered armies employed by Rome in the different quarters of the world. In fact, the only passages, with which I am acquainted, relating at all to the subject, consist of a casual remark in one of the military epistles of Aurelian; two incidental legal observations contained in the law writings of Modestinus, and in the Codex of Justinian; an allusion by Vegetius to the medical care and expense of the sick in camp; and an expression by Galen as to the opportunities for anatomical observation presented to the physicians during the German wars.

The reference to the medical superintendence of the army by Aurelian occurs in Vopiscus’ Life of that Emperor (chap. vi.) In issuing some peremptory orders regarding the discipline of the army, after enumerating various rigid rules which the soldiers were to observe, Aurelian concludes with the following admonition and announcement:—“Let each soldier aid and serve his fellow; let them be cured gratuitously by the physicians (a medicis gratis curentur); let them give nothing to soothsayers; let them conduct themselves quietly in their hospitia; and he who would raise strife, let him be lashed.”368 The date of this order is not earlier than A.D. 270, the year when Aurelian became Emperor.

When treating of those who, by absence from Rome, etc., were exempted from some burthens and taxes, the jurist Modestinus, who wrote in the earlier half of the third century, mentions, among others, the military physicians (Medici Militum), “because,” he adds, “the office which they fill is beneficial to the public, and ought not to be productive of any injury to themselves (quoniam officium, quod gerunt, et publice prodest, et fraudem eis adferre non debet)”.369

In Justinian’s Corpus Juris Civilis, lib. x. tit. 52, drawn up in the sixth century, there is a series of laws, “De Professoribus et Medicis.” The first of these laws exempts the physician of a legion (Medicum Legionis) from civil duties when he is absent in the public service.370

In his work De Re Militari, Vegetius, who wrote towards the end of the fourth century, devotes a chapter (lib. iii. 2) to the regulation of the health of an army; and incidentally rather than directly alludes to the cure of sick soldiers by the skill of the physicians (arte medicorum).371 Enumerating also elsewhere the duties of the PrÆfect of the Camp, he states that his authority extended over his sick fellow-soldiers, and the physicians who had the care of them, and he regulated the expenses relative thereto. (Lib. ii. cap. 10.)

The passage I have alluded to as in the works of Galen is of an earlier date than any of the preceding, and is to be found in liber iii. cap. 2, of his work, De Compositione Medicamentorum per Genera. In discoursing regarding the treatment of wounds, he talks of the necessity of a knowledge of human anatomy for their proper management. In order to know the anatomy of man, he recommends here, as elsewhere, the anatomy of the monkey to be studied, maintaining that without such knowledge you cannot take due advantage of the opportunities that you may accidentally have presented to you of becoming acquainted with the anatomical structure of human bodies. And he adds, that in consequence of a want of this knowledge the physicians (?? ?at???) employed in the German wars, and having the power of dissecting the bodies of the barbarians, did not learn more than the cooks understand.372

This paragraph, though indistinct as regards the status and office of these ?at???, is still sufficiently explicit as to the fact that there were physicians in the Roman army during the German wars that Galen alludes to; and these wars were no doubt those that occurred from the year A.D. 167 to 175, immediately previous to the time when Galen wrote the work from which we have quoted.

The history of other more ancient governments than that of Rome is not without allusion to the office of army physicians. Homer,373 Herodotus,374 and Pliny,375 each comment on the number and fame of the medical men with which the kingdom of Egypt abounded. Diogenes Laertius, in his life of Plato, tells us of Plato’s sickness when travelling in Egypt; and adds that he remarked, like Homer, that the Egyptians were all physicians (fa?a? pa?ta? ?????p??? ????pt???? ?at???? e??a?).376 They had, moreover, paid medical officers attendant upon their troops in war. For, in describing the status and character of the Egyptian physicians, Diodorus Siculus specially mentions that, when engaged in military expeditions, the soldiers were cured without fees, for the physicians of the army received a salary from the state.377

One instance is referred to in history, in which an Egyptian king, when thrown from his horse in battle, wounded and speechless from injury of the head, had his skull trepanned by his surgeons. I allude to Ptolemy Philometor, who defeated Alexander Balas, the pretender to the throne of Syria, in the year B.C. 146. According to Livy, the victor himself died after the battle during the attempts of his surgeons to relieve him. “Ptolemaeus, in caput graviter vulneratus, inter curationem, dum ossa medici terebrare contendunt, exspiravit.”—(Epit. lib. lii.)

Nor is the old classical literature of Greece without reference to surgical services tendered to the soldier in war. Homer describes the double character of army surgeons and warriors as combined in the persons of Podalirius and Machaon.378 And when the latter is wounded, he puts into the mouth of Idomeneus the well-known expression (Iliad, lib. xi. v. 514), that the medical man is to the army more valuable than many warriors; knowing as he does how to excise arrows, and to apply soothing medications:—

In the course of the Iliad, the surgical treatment followed in individual cases among the disabled Greek warriors is sometimes minutely entered upon; and thus the different modes of operation by which the transfixing arrow, dart, and lance, were, in those early days of surgical science, removed from the bodies of the wounded, may be sometimes gathered from Homer’s lucid and minute descriptions. He mentions three different methods, at least, by which war-weapons were extracted—viz., first, by evulsion, or traction of the weapon backwards, as in the case of Menelaus (Iliad, lib. iv. 214); secondly, by protrusion, or pushing of the instrument forward, as in the case of Diomede (v. 112); and, thirdly, by enlarging the wound, and cutting out the weapon, as was the practice of Patroclus in the case of Eurypylus (xi. 843). I am not aware that Homer ever individualises any internal medical treatment except once (xi. 638), when he mentions a mixture of Pramnian wine, cheese, and flour, as having been administered by the nursing hand of Hecamede to the wounded Machaon,379 ere she prepared the warm bath for him and washed away the clotted blood (xiv. 7). The author of the ancient Greek treatise ?e??, an essay usually included in the works of Hippocrates, explicitly advises the young physician to attach himself for a time to some army, in order to learn the best methods of extracting war-weapons, and to acquire practical skill in the treatment of accidents.380

Xenophon alludes in various parts of his works to physicians or surgeons connected with the Greek armies. In describing the laws of the Lacedemonians, as instituted in the earliest ages of Greek history by Lycurgus, he incidentally mentions that physicians were attached to the Spartan army. For in the arrangements previously laid down for the troops before a battle, it was ordered that there should be placed behind the station occupied by the King several officials, and among others, the soothsayers or priests, the physicians, the minstrels, the leaders of the army, and any persons who were voluntarily present in the expedition (?a? ??te??, ?a? ?at???, ?a? a???ta?, ?? t?? st?at?? ?????te?, ?a? ??e???s??? ?? t??e? pat??s??).

Again, in his celebrated account of the retreat of the ten thousand Greeks, Xenophon states that at the conclusion of the fifth day of their march, and after considerable skirmishing with the troops of Tissaphernes, “they appointed eight physicians, for there were many persons wounded.”381—(Anabasis, lib. iii. c. 4, § 30.)

Lastly, in his semi-historical or political romance—the CyropÆdia (lib. i. 6, § 15), Xenophon makes his young royal hero, Cyrus, the founder of the Persian monarchy, speak, among other matters, of the importance of medical officers being attached to armies. “With respect to health” (says Cyrus), “having heard and observed that cities that wish health choose physicians, and that commanders, for the sake of their soldiers, take physicians; so, when I was placed in this command, I immediately attended to this point; and I believe that I have men with me that are very skilful in the art of physic.” In the same work Xenophon subsequently describes Cyrus as commending to the professional services and care of his medical officers the Chaldeans who had been wounded and captured in fight with him.—(Instit. Cyri, lib. iii. c. 2, § 12.)

Few individual instances are recorded in Greek history of surgical aid being afforded on the field of battle. One of the most interesting examples is that mentioned by Quintus Curtius in reference to Alexander the Great at the taking of the capital of the OxydraceÆ, or Mallians. The Macedonian King, who had leaped down, almost alone, within the walls of the fortress, was struck with a long arrow (duorum cubitorum sagitta), which entered the right side of the thorax (per thoracem paulum super latus dextrum infigeretur). The wound produced great hÆmorrhage and faintness. Alexander was carried on his shield to his tent; and the shaft of the arrow being cut off and his cuirass removed, it was discovered that the head of the arrow was barbed, and could not, consequently, be removed without the artificial dilatation of the wound and imminent danger from increased bleeding; for the large weapon was fixed in its situation, and seemed to have penetrated into the internal viscera (quippe ingens telum adactum erat, et penetrasse in viscera videbatur). At Alexander’s request, the surgeon Critobulus undertook the extraction, enlarged the wound, and removed the arrow-head, which, according to Plutarch, was “three fingers broad and four long.” Great hÆmorrhage (ingens vis sanguinis) attended the operation; death-like insensibility supervened; and, when the flow of blood continued in despite of the medicaments (medicamenta) applied, a cry and wail was set up by those around, that the king was dead. At last, however, the hÆmorrhage stopped, under the state of syncope. That very syncope, observes Arrian, saved his life; and Alexander gradually recovered. But every modern surgeon must admire the boldness, not less than the expertness, of Critobulus, when he reflects for a moment on the fearful peril attendant on such an operation, performed on so august a patient —and at a time, too, when surgical science as yet possessed no certain means of restraining surgical hÆmorrhage.382

In the earlier periods of Roman history and Roman warfare, the treatment of the military sick and wounded was, in all probability, trusted to the casual care of some fellow-soldiers whose tastes and inclinations had led them to pay more than usual care to the rude surgery which existed at the time.383 As early, however, as the commencement of the Christian era, we find Celsus laying down distinct, and in many instances very excellent and practical precepts for the extraction of war-weapons from the bodies of the wounded384—as of arrows, spears, leaden bullets (glandes plumbeÆ), etc.

Occasionally the weapons used in ancient war seem to have been forged for the special purpose of rendering their extraction by the surgeon a matter of difficulty and danger. At least we find Paulus Ægineta complaining that some of them have “their barbs diverging in opposite directions, like the forked lightning, in order that, whether pulled or pushed, they may fasten in the parts.”385

Still, let me repeat, neither in Celsus nor in Paulus Ægineta, nor, indeed, in any other ancient medical work, have we, as far as I know, any allusion to the circumstance of surgeons or physicians being regularly appointed as army medical officers in the Roman army, for the purpose of superintending the treatment of the wounded, or—what is of still greater importance—in order to take professional care of the soldiers disabled by sickness and disease, and whose number in warfare is generally very much greater than the number of those that are disabled in fight.

Modern military experience has, in many instances, proved the high importance of the services and superintendence of a medical military staff; and not so much in reference to the care of individual cases, and the cure of the wounded, as in reference to the general health and consequent general strength and success of whole armies. In fact, in war the devastations produced by sickness and disease have often been found greatly more formidable and fatal than any devastations produced by the sword; fevers, dysenteries, and other distempers of the camp, have carried off far more soldiers than the ball or bayonet; malarious and morbific agency has sometimes terminated a campaign as effectually as the highest military strategy; and armies have occasionally, in later times, been as completely destroyed by the indirect ravages of disease as by the direct effects of battle.

Nor was the experience of the Roman armies in this respect different from our own. When the Emperor Septimius Severus determined to subdue the whole of Scotland, he about the year 208 led, according to Herodian and Dion Cassius,386 an army of not less than 80,000 men across the Forth, marched them north, apparently as far as the Moray Firth, and thence returned to York. But though in this course the Roman Emperor nowhere met the enemy in open fight, he is stated to have lost, in this single campaign, not less than 50,000 of his troops. The marshes, fens, woods, etc., of Caledonia were far more destructive to the Roman invaders, than were the spears, long swords (ingentes gladii) and scythed chariots (corvini) of its painted, and almost naked, warriors.387

We know, from the oft-repeated anecdote regarding Arcagathus, as told by Pliny, that in the early days of republican Rome the practice of medicine was not encouraged among the inhabitants of the Eternal City. But, in the later periods of the empire, Rome abounded with native and foreign physicians; and, when we find the Roman people exalted in so many branches of art and knowledge, we could not but expect that common experience, and results like that of Severus, would have suggested to them the propriety of increasing the strength and success of their armies, by having medical men to watch over the health of the soldiers that were fighting in so many different regions around the Roman standards.

Some modern discoveries in Great Britain and elsewhere show that such a conjecture is not at variance with truth, and that the Roman armies were provided, at all events in the time of the Empire, with a medical staff.

Housesteads, in Northumberland (the ancient Borcovicus), formed one of the principal stations on the great defensive wall which the Emperor Hadrian reared, in the second century, from the Tyne to the Solway. Many Roman remains have been found at Housesteads.388 Thirty years ago the embellished monumental tablet, represented in the accompanying plate, Fig. 1, was discovered among these remains. This tablet was, according to the inscription upon it, raised by the first Tungrian cohort to the memory of their MEDICUS ORDINARIUS.389 The plate represents this interesting relic, which is preserved in the Newcastle Museum. The inscription upon the tablet reads as follows, in its contracted and in its extended forms:—

And I append Mr. Brace’s translation of it:—“Sacred to the gods of the shades below. To ANICIUS INGENUUS, Physician in Ordinary of Cohort the first of the Tungrians. He lived twenty-five years.”390

The first Tungrian Cohort, which erected this monument over the grave of their young physician, distinguished itself under Agricola at the battle of the Mons Grampius.391 It was afterwards, as we learn from some legionary inscriptions, engaged at Castlecary in erecting there a portion of the more northern Roman wall of Antoninus, which ran from the Forth to the Clyde.392 Subsequently it was stationed at Cramond, near Edinburgh, and there raised an altar to the Matres AlatervÆ et Campestres.393 Still later, this Cohort was stationed in Cumberland; and latterly at Housesteads, in Northumberland, where the monument we allude to, and several others, were erected by them.394

The youth of this military physician is remarkable. He died at twenty-five.

The elaborate nature of the carving of this monumental tablet affords the strongest evidence of the esteem and respect in which this young physician was held by his Cohort. In fact, it is more ornamented than many of the altars raised by this and other Cohorts to the worship of their gods.

It has been suggested by Mr. O’Callaghan395 that the animal represented on the monument is a hare, and that it was selected as an emblem characteristic of the watchfulness of the profession to which ANICIUS INGENUUS belonged. In his admirable work on the Roman Wall, the Rev. Mr. Bruce describes, more correctly, the figure to be that of a rabbit; and he further conjectures that it had some reference to the worship of Priapus. The whole device is, in all probability, far more simple in its signification. The cuniculus, or rabbit, when found on ancient Roman monuments and coins, is generally held by archÆologists and numismatists as the recognised emblem of Spain,396 as, for example, on the coins of Sextus Pompey and Galba; and the circular bucklers or cetrÆ which are placed on this tablet, on either side of the animal, are equally strong characteristics of the same country. Indeed, there can be little or no doubt that these devices indicate merely that this young military physician was of Spanish birth and origin.

Several monumental and votive tablets have been discovered in other parts of the old Roman world, affording further evidence of the Roman troops being provided with a medical staff. In Gruter’s great work on Roman inscriptions there are copies of at least three inscriptions, in which physicians of Cohorts (medici cohortum) are mentioned.397 One of these inscriptions (p. 219, 3) bears the name of a physician who had the same nomen gentilicium as the medical officer of the Tungrian Cohort who died at Housesteads—viz., “M. JULIUS INGENUUS MEDIC. COH. II. VIG.” The tablet, which was found at Rome, contains a votive imperial inscription from twelve or thirteen persons, and among others, from the physician to the second “Cohors Vigilum.” Another of the inscriptions of Gruter is specially interesting in relation to its date, for it was cut at the commencement of the reign of Domitian,398 and in the year of the consulship of F. Flavius Sabinus, which year chronologists know to have been the eighty-third of the Christian era. We are, consequently, afforded evidence by this inscription that before the end of the first century, at least—however much earlier—medical officers were appointed to the Cohorts of the Roman army. The inscription itself is upon an altar or votive tablet, dedicated by SEXTUS TITUS ALEXANDER, physician of the fifth PrÆtorian Cohort, to Æsculapius, and the safety of his fellow-soldiers. A copy of this altar and its inscription is given in the accompanying plate, Fig. 2. The stone seems to have been found at Rome.

Another altar, discovered also at Rome, and inscribed in the same terms to Æsculapius, is given by Gruter (p. 68, 2). In this instance, the dedicator is SEXTUS TITIUS, medical officer to the sixth PrÆtorian Cohort; and he erects it for the health of the fellow-soldiers of his Cohort, in conformity with a vow which he had undertaken. The whole inscription is as follows:—

Long ago Reines published in his Syntagma Inscriptionum,399 a tablet found at Rome and erected by TITUS CLAUDIUS JULIANUS, Clinical Physician to the fourth PrÆtorian Cohort, to himself, to his wife Tullia Epigone, to their freedmen, freedwomen, and descendants.

Muratori, in his Thesaurus,400 cites a Roman sepulchral tablet discovered at Veterbi, and containing an inscription by a father to his deceased son, M. VLPIUS SPORUS, Physician to the Indian and Asturian Auxiliaries (Medico Alarum Indianae et tertiae Asturum).401

The tablets to which I have hitherto alluded all refer, with the doubtful exception of the first and last, to one rank of medical military men, namely the surgeons of cohorts (Medici Cohortum). It is generally believed that each cohort consisted of about 500 or 600 men; though this appears to have varied at different times. From the preceding tablets, each cohort seems to have been provided with at least one medical officer, if not more. For the distinctive terms “Ordinarius” and “Clinicus,” which occur in the first and last of the preceding inscriptions, when added to the usual term “Medicus Cohortis,” apparently tend to indicate a different grade or rank of medical officer from the latter.

Whether, however, or not there were different grades among the Roman Medici Cohortum, we have sufficient evidence for proving that there existed in the Roman army a higher rank of medical officer than these,—namely, Medici Legionum. The Roman legion consisted of ten cohorts.402 We have seen that the individual cohorts of which the legion was composed were each provided with a medical officer or officers. I have already cited a law from Justinian’s Codex, showing further that there were military physicians to the Roman legions. The evidence of monumental tablets affords additional proof, that over the whole legion, another, and in all probability a superior medical officer, was placed. More than one monumental tablet has been discovered, dedicated not to the Medicus Cohortis, but to the Medicus Legioni. Thus Maffei, in his Museum Veronense, gives the inscription of a tablet raised by Scribonia Faustina to the manes of her very dear husband, L CÆLIUS ARRIANUS, physician to the Second Italian Legion, who died at the age of forty-nine years and seven months. The inscription in the original runs as follows:—

In the Collectio Inscriptionum (vol. i. No. 448) of Hugenbach and Orelli, there is published another Roman tablet found in Switzerland (at Gebistorf, near Windisch), bearing the name of a Legionary physician. The inscription states that Atticus Patronus erected this tablet to TITUS CLAUDIUS HYMNUS, physician to the twenty-first Legion, and to Claudia Quieta, his wife.404

Orelli gives in the same work (vol. ii. No. 4996), another tablet found at Salon, in which a third physician to a legion is named; the tablet being erected by M. BESIUS TERTULLUS, physician of the eleventh Legion, to the memory of his “hospes,” Papiria Pyrallis.

I have already alluded to a passage in Vegetius, showing in relation to the government of the Roman medical staff, that the medical officers as well as their patients were both placed under the control of the PrÆfect of the Camp, to whose multifarious duties, these, among other matters, pertained. “Praeterea aegri contubernales, et medici a quibus curantur, expensae etiam ad ejus industriam pertinebant.”405 Vegetius does not allude to the existence of any special sick quarters; but a writer of the second century, who lived under Trajan and Hadrian, Hyginus Gromaticus, in his essay “De Castrametatione,”406 in laying down the proportions and measurements of the different parts of a Roman camp, describes the proper situation in it for the Hospital or “Valetudinarium.” This observation of Hyginus is interesting as far as regards the probable date of the first institution of camp hospitals; for we have no allusion to them in Polybius’ earlier account of the different points and parts of a Roman camp of his day; and even in the first century of our era, when Tacitus describes Germanicus as visiting and encouraging the wounded soldiers under his command, he uses such an expression, “circumire saucios”as to lead to the supposition, that the invalids in the Roman camp were still, like the old Homeric heroes, laid up in their own tents.407 Indeed, Lampridius speaks of the Emperor Alexander Severus in the third century, still visiting his sick soldiers in their tents (aegrotantes ipse visitavit per tentoria milites).408 Let me add, that medical stores appear, as we might expect, to have been carried with the imperial armies. At least in the war conducted by Germanicus against Arminius, we are told by Tacitus, that in one of their contests with the German army, the Roman troops lost their intrenching tools, tents, and remedies or dressings for the wounded (fomenta sauciis);409 and subsequently we find Agrippina the wife of the Roman general, distributing gratuitously among the soldiers, clothes to the needy, and dressings to the wounded (militibusque, ut quis inops aut saucius, vestem et fomenta dilargita est).410 We have the transport of the wounded sick sometimes spoken of; as, for example, when Tempanius leads back his victorious troops from the Volscian war;411 but the only instance in which, as far as I remember, any special description of ambulance is mentioned, occurs in Hirtius’ Commentaries, where he tells us that, after the battle fought near Ruspina, Labienus ordered his wounded to be carried to Adrumentum, bound in waggons (saucios suos jubet in plostris deligatos Adrumentum deportari).412 The passage should more probably read “plostris decubitos.”

The remarks which I have hitherto made refer only to the medical staff and organisation of the Roman army. If, however, as the preceding facts tend to show, the Roman troops were furnished with a medical staff, there is, a priori, every probability that the Roman fleet was similarly provided. The contingencies, however, of a naval, as compared with a military life, render the preservation of such monumental proofs as we have already adduced in relation to the existence of army medical officers much less likely in relation to the existence of medical officers in the fleet. Indeed I am only aware of the discovery of one ancient tablet referring to the naval medical service. In his late splendid work on the Latin inscriptions found in the kingdom of Naples, Mommsen has given a careful copy of the tablet in question.413 The inscription upon it was first, I believe, published by Marini.414 The tablet itself, which is now placed in the antiquarian collection at Dresden, was originally discovered in the Elysian fields, near BaiÆ; and consequently in the vicinity of the famous Pontus Julius, and the station of the imperial Misenian fleet. The inscription on the stone bears that M.

SATRIUS LONGINUS, physician to the three-banked ship or trirem, the CUPID,415 and those or the heirs of those freed by Julia Venerias, his wife, erected the tablet to the manes of this deserving lady.

In the preceding inscription LONGINUS is designated Medicus Duplicarius; the term duplicarius in this as other inscriptions signifying that, by the length or superiority of his service, he was entitled to double pay and rewards. The “duplex stupendium” and “duplex frumentum” is repeatedly alluded to by Varro, Livy, Virgil, and other classical authors, as a military reward accorded to the more deserving soldiers and officers of the army; and the corresponding adjective “duplicarius” not unfrequently occurs in old Roman inscriptions.

In a previous page it has been stated that nowhere in the Roman classics does there exist any distinct allusion to physicians or surgeons as forming a regular part of the staff of the Roman army. There are several references, however, in ancient medical and classical authors to the fact of medical men being placed in professional attendance upon Roman Senators,416 Consuls,417 and Emperors during the course of their military campaigns. Thus Galen tells us that he himself was summoned in this last capacity to attend upon the Emperors M. Aurelius and L. Verus at Apuleia during their proposed campaign against some of the German tribes.418

Various fragmentary notices exist regarding the physicians who attended upon those Roman Emperors who visited Britain. A medical author (whom Galen often quotes), Scribonius Largus, has left a valued therapeutical work, De Compositione Medicamentorum. This work was written, as we are informed in the preface to it, when the author was absent from Rome, and deprived of the greater part of his library. In his History of Medicine, Sprengel states, but I know not on what precise authority, that the work in question was composed by Largus when he was absent with the Emperor Claudius during his short campaign into England.419 Our countryman, Sir Thomas Browne, makes a similar statement. In his Hydriotaphia, when discoursing on the want of Roman notices regarding the state, habits, etc., of the ancient Britons, he observes, “We much deplore the loss of that letter which Cicero expected or received from his brother Quintus, as a resolution of British customs; or the accounts which might have been made by Scribonius Largus, the physician accompanying the Emperor Claudius, who might have discovered that frugal bit of the old Britons (mentioned by Dion) which, in the bigness of a bean, could satisfy their hunger.”420

We have already had occasion to allude to the disasters which attended the Scottish campaign of Severus, and to the imperfect health of the emperor himself during his invasion of Scotland. The evidence of Herodian further shows us that during it he was attended by his own physicians, and that their conduct after the emperor’s return from Scotland to York, whilst in the highest degree commendable as regards their faith and duty to the emperor, proved the cause of their own downfall and destruction. The anxiety of Caracalla for the death of his father Severus is well known. We have the testimony of Herodian to the fact, that while the father and son were living at York, Caracalla at one time attempted to destroy his father with his own hand. The same historian further informs us, that the unhappy son attempted to induce the medical attendants of Severus to adopt means to hasten the emperor’s death.421 He adds further, that in consequence of the court physicians not complying with his unrighteous request, Caracalla, immediately after the demise of Severus, commenced his reign of bloodshed and terror by putting to death these recusant physicians of the late emperor.422

In the retrospect, it affords a strange subject of meditation for us in the nineteenth century, to consider that, some fifteen hundred years ago, it thus happened in England, that a number of physicians were themselves doomed to death for refusing to pervert their professional trust so far as to become the murderers of the royal invalid who had confided his health to their care. And the modern physician may look back with some degree of pride upon the fact, that in an age and at a court where cruelty and corruption held unrestrained sway, some members of the medical profession at least remained so uncorruptible as to endanger and sacrifice their own lives rather than tamper with the life of their patient.423

ROMAN MEDICINE STAMPS.