However, his life is a mystery.
A Roman physician in a painting by John William Waterhouse (1877).
All we know about Scribonius Longus is through his own writings.
Major ancient sources like Suetonius or Pliny the Elder do not even mention him.
Many historians have wondered how it was possible that Pliny did not know Scribonius Longus.
Roman soldier removing an arrow from a fellow soldier’s leg with a pair of pinchers.
Hence, his prose is little elaborated and very colloquial.
In fact, the work of Scribonius is the oldest documentary reference to the Hippocratic oath.
This is so because people give more value to things than to themselves.
Therefore, doctors do not feel the need to work hard in the study of medicine.
The first consists of 162 recipes and is organized by disease, from head to toe.
Many of them continued to be used until at least 1655.
Evidently, at that time it was animal electricity.
In this way the fish discharged its electricity until the patient’s senses became numb.
Hence the resulting state is called torpor.
In the case of gout, the fish was placed under the feet.
Photo:Philippe Guillaume/Wikimedia
This article was originally published inLa Brujula Verde.
It has been translated from Spanish and republished with permission.
