men, Locusta by name, and
after she had poisoned Britannicus, rewarded her with a great estate in
land, and placed disciples with her to be instructed in her nefarious
trade.

There was also a very ignorant class of oculists in Rome in the time of
Nero, but at Marseilles Demosthenes Philalethes was deservedly
celebrated, and his book on diseases of the eye was in use for several
centuries. The eye doctors of Rome employed ointments almost entirely,
and about two hundred seals have been discovered which had been attached
to pots of eye salves, each seal bearing the inventor's and proprietor's
name. In the time of Galen, these quack oculists were very numerous, and
Galen inveighs against them. Martial satirized them: "Now you are a
gladiator who once were an ophthalmist; you did as a doctor what you do
as a gladiator." "The blear-eyed Hylas would have paid you sixpence, O
Quintus; one eye is gone, he will still pay threepence; make haste and
take it, brief is your chance; when he is blind, he will pay you
nothing." The oculists of Alexandria were very proficient, and some of
their followers, at various times throughout the period of the Roman
Empire, were remarkably skilful. Their literature has perished, but it
is believed that they were able to operate on cataract.

With the death of Nero in A.D. 68, the direct line of the Caesars became
extinct.

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Suetonius: "Lives of the Caesars," lxxxii.

[19] Seneca "De Benefic.," vi.

CHAPTER VII.

PHYSICIANS FROM THE TIME OF AUGUSTUS TO THE DEATH OF NERO.

Celsus--His life and works--His influence on Medicine--Meges of
Sidon--Apollonius of Tyana--Alleged miracles--Vettius
Valleus--Scribonius Longus--Andromachus--Thessalus of
Tralles--Pliny.

Aulus Cornelius Celsus lived in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius.
References in his works show that he either lived at the same time as
Themison or shortly after him. Verona has been claimed as his
birthplace, but the purity of his literary style shows that he lived for
a considerable time in Rome, and he was probably educated there. In
Pliny's account of the history of medicine, Celsus is not mentioned as
having practised in Rome, and it is almost certain that he combined the
practice of medicine with the study of science and literary pursuits;
his practice was not general, but restricted to his friends and
dependents. His writings show that he had a clinical knowledge of
disease a