Author

Aulus Cornelius Celsus

Roman encyclopedist of the first century AD, author of De Medicina

Posthumous or imagined likeness of Aulus Cornelius Celsus.
Posthumous or imagined likeness of Aulus Cornelius Celsus. Source · CC0

About Aulus Cornelius Celsus

Aulus Cornelius Celsus was a Roman encyclopedist active in the early first century CE. His De Medicina is the only surviving section of a larger work that probably covered agriculture, rhetoric, military art and other practical disciplines. Although it is debated whether he practiced medicine himself, his Latin synthesis preserves invaluable evidence for Hellenistic and Roman therapeutics, dietetics and surgery.

Notable works

On this site

On Medicine

c. 30 CE · Ancient · Collection

On Medicine, or De Medicina, is the most important surviving Latin medical work before late antiquity. Celsus organizes medicine into diet, drugs and surgery, giving Roman readers a lucid account of Greek medical learning without the dense polemic of specialist schools.