WAS THE ROMAN ARMY PROVIDED WITH MEDICAL OFFICERS?
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 (οἱ ἰατροι) 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 Ἰατροι, 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 (φαναι παντας ἀνθρώπους Αἴγυπτιους ἰατρους εἰναι).[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]