Columella (De re rustica) often quotes him with great deference to his authority; he equals him to the most learned writers on husbandry; and when he is correcting a vulgar error, expresses his surprise that Cornelius Celsus could be misled, “who was not only skilled in agriculture, but took in the whole compass of natural knowledge[C].” I shall not recite all the passages, where he mentions Celsus, but cannot help transcribing one, it is so expressive of our author’s manner. It is on the article of bees, “concerning which (says he) it is impossible to surpass the diligence of Hyginus, the profusion of ornaments in Virgil, and the elegance of Celsus. Hyginus has with great industry collected the precepts, which lay scattered in the ancients; Virgil has adorned the subject with poetic flowers; and in Celsus we find a judicious mixture of both these manners[ D ].”
From Columella’s mentioning Celsus as a contemporary, but not as a living writer[ E ], and our author’s speaking of Themison in the same manner[ F ], Le Clerc infers, with great probability, that Celsus wrote towards the latter end of the reign of Augustus, or at latest, in the beginning of Tiberius; in which last period he is placed by Fabricius[ G ]. And that he cannot have been later, appears not only from these authorities, but almost undeniably from the purity and elegance of his style, more nearly allied to the Augustan, than any of the succeeding ages.
Both Columella and Quintilian seem to speak of him as a Roman, and indeed our author himself, when he is giving the Greek name for any distemper, and is to add the Roman, frequently uses this phrase, nostri vocant, our countrymen call it, or some other expression of the same nature[ H ].
We have seen by the above quotations, how many treatises were composed by Celsus, which have all perished in the barbarous ages, except this work on medicine; which from the manner of its beginning, Ut alimenta sanis corporibus agricultura, sic medicina ægris sanitatem promittit, seems to have immediately followed his book on husbandry: for this easy transition is very common with our author in connecting different subjects. What confirms this is, that H. Stephens, upon the authority of an ancient manuscript, has prefixed as the title, Aurelii Cornelii Celsi de re medica libri octo; operis ab eo scripti de artibus pars sexta. It would be still more evident, if we could depend upon the manuscript in the library of Alex. Paduan: in which, at the end of the fourth book is written, Artium Cornelii Celsi liber nonus, idem medicinæ liber quartus explicit feliciter[ I ]. For his agriculture contained five books[ J ], with which the first four of this work make up the nine.
Every trifling circumstance relating to our author has employed the industry of his learned commentators. The English reader will therefore forgive me for observing, that in most of the manuscripts, his name is written A. Cornelius Celsus. And Rubeus informs us, the ancient manuscript in the Vatican library has this title, Auli Cornelii Celsi liber sextus, idemque medicinæ primus. As Aurelius was the name of a Roman family, it is not probable that this would be his praenomen; on the contrary, Aulus is found to be a common praenomen in the Cornelian family[ K ]. For these reasons, I read his name A. that is Aulus, &c. instead of Aurelius, as most of the printed copies have it.
From our author’s admirable abstract of the history of physic, it is easy to see he had studied and thoroughly digested the writings of the preceding physicians, and been attentive to the practice, as well as to the arguments of the several sects. We have no reason to doubt he made the best use of them; for we see that he confined himself to no one party, but selected from each what he judged to be most salutary. Though he has quoted many authors, sometimes with a view to recommend their practice in particular cases, at other times to shew the impropriety of it; yet through the whole, Hippocrates and Asclepiades seem to have been highest in his esteem; but he does not give up his judgment implicitly to these for he often leaves both, and advances very good reasons for differing from them. He ingenuously owns[ L ], that he has borrowed the prognostics from Hippocrates, “because,” says he, “though the moderns have made alterations in the method of curing, nevertheless they allow, that he has left the best prognostics.” With regard to the critical days, he entirely condemns his doctrine, and follows Asclepiades in rejecting the notion as idle and chimerical[ M ]. But from both these authors he dissents in his rules about bleeding.
It would be superfluous for me to prefix to this translation a general view of Celsus’s practice in the various diseases; for besides that this is already done by the learned Le Clerc[ N ], our author’s method is so clear and concise, that the reader will acquire, with ease, the most perfect idea from the book itself.
Whenever he differs in opinion from writers, whose authority he otherwise reveres, we find his reasoning modest, concise, close, and admirably well adapted to the subject in dispute; but the delicacy of his expression, when he condemns others, and the caution with which he avoids speaking of himself, have led some to believe he was not a practitioner: though the strongest argument against his having practised physic is drawn from the silence of Pliny, who names Celsus, in several books, among the authors from whom he took his materials, and never ranks him in the list of physicians, whom he separates from the others. But I am surprised it has escaped the observation of the critics, that these catalogues of physicians consist only of foreigners, whom Pliny distinguishes from other foreigners, who were not physicians; whereas Celsus stands always amongst the Romans. Now Pliny, in his list of Roman writers, has not noted their several professions: for in most of the places, where we read the name of Celsus, we also find that of Antonius Castor, without any mention of his profession, though Pliny himself in another place tells us[ O ], he was a physician of great reputation, whom he saw living in retirement, and cultivating a kind of physic-garden, when he was above an hundred years old. Thus, the name of Antonius Castor would have been lost with his writings, notwithstanding the figure he made among his contemporaries, had he not happened to be mentioned by Pliny. And hence it appears, that nothing can be inferred from the silence of Pliny and the other ancients, in regard to the profession of Celsus; though he should not be Cornelius the physician, mentioned by Galen, as Le Clerc thinks it probable he is.
I might have urged many passages in this book to prove that he was a physician, if I had not reason to think the present age is already satisfied in that point. There are two, however, so remarkable, that they ought not to be omitted. When our author is considering the proper time for allowing nourishment, after saying that some gave their patients food in the evening, he gives reasons against that method, and then adds, “Ob haec ad mediam noctem decurro, i. e. For these reasons I defer it till midnight.” Thus most of the older copies read, and also Morgagni’s manuscript; so that Linden is not easily to be forgiven for making alterations in so material a place[ P ]. In the other passages there is no variation in the reading. In that species of the ancyloblepharon, where the eye-lid unites with the white of the eye, our author, after describing the method of cure, immediately adds, “Ego sic restitutum neminem memini. Meges se quoque multa, &c. i. e. I do not remember an instance of any person cured in this way. Meges also has told us that he has tried many methods, and never was successful, because the eye-lid always united again to the eye[ Q ].” The form of expression here used by our author, in a manner peculiar to a practitioner, would come very improperly from a mere compiler. The connection of these two sentences by quoque seems to put our author’s own observation upon the same footing with that of Meges, whom he quotes on several occasions as a most accomplished surgeon[ R ].