Although all general histories of medicine make reference to skilled doctors in the Roman legions, the specialized secondary literature on the subject is not plentiful. Garrison, Jacob, Haberling, and Richmond, among others, are mentioned when one speaks of works on the question of medicine in the Roman legions. Apparently the problem of doctors in the legions has been considered settled.
Previous discussions generally argue that the legion was supplied with skilled medical care. The evidence noted consists of numerous inscriptions found throughout the empire, which mention in one military context or another, a medicus or a iatros. According to the usual view the reliefs on the Column of Trajan reinforce the inscriptional evidence of trained doctors in the legions. Normally omitted from detailed discussion is the broader perspective presented by literary sources. Like all things Roman, the legions must be considered as a part of the general cultural matrix, and they cannot be separated in a historical analysis from the society from which they took their origin. Also we must be exceedingly wary of equating twentieth-century medicine with the practice and theory of medicine in the Roman Empire. As Sigerist has so carefully and pointedly observed, modem conceptualisations of medicine science, and society often do not apply to antiquity. So it is with consideration of the medicus in the Roman legion.
Roman medicine and the legions: a reconsideration
John Scarborough
Medical History: Vol. 12:3 (1968)
Abstract
Although all general histories of medicine make reference to skilled doctors in the Roman legions, the specialized secondary literature on the subject is not plentiful. Garrison, Jacob, Haberling, and Richmond, among others, are mentioned when one speaks of works on the question of medicine in the Roman legions. Apparently the problem of doctors in the legions has been considered settled.
Previous discussions generally argue that the legion was supplied with skilled medical care. The evidence noted consists of numerous inscriptions found throughout the empire, which mention in one military context or another, a medicus or a iatros. According to the usual view the reliefs on the Column of Trajan reinforce the inscriptional evidence of trained doctors in the legions. Normally omitted from detailed discussion is the broader perspective presented by literary sources. Like all things Roman, the legions must be considered as a part of the general cultural matrix, and they cannot be separated in a historical analysis from the society from which they took their origin. Also we must be exceedingly wary of equating twentieth-century medicine with the practice and theory of medicine in the Roman Empire. As Sigerist has so carefully and pointedly observed, modem conceptualisations of medicine science, and society often do not apply to antiquity. So it is with consideration of the medicus in the Roman legion.
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