regular
physicians bought medicines already compounded by the druggists, and the
latter, as in our own day, prescribed as well as the physicians.

Depilatories were much in vogue, and were usually made of arsenic and
unslaked lime, but also from the roots and juices of plants. They were
first used only by women, but in later times also by effeminate men.
Tweezers have been discovered which were adapted for pulling out hairs,
and most of the depilatories were recommended to be applied after the
use of the tweezers. The duty of pulling out hairs was performed by
slaves.

Most of the medical practitioners in the time of Augustus were either
slaves or freedmen. Posts of responsibility and of honour were sometimes
assigned to freedmen, as is shown by the appointment by Nero of Helius,
a freedman, to the administration of Rome in the absence of his imperial
master. Cicero wrote letters to his freedman Tiro in terms of friendship
and affection. The master of a great household selected a slave for his
ability and aptitude, and had him trained to be the medical adviser of
the household; and the skill shown by the doctor sometimes gained for
him his freedom.

There were 400 slaves in one great household of Rome, and they were all
executed for not having prevented the murder of their master.[15] It is
recorded that physicians were sometimes compelled to do the disgusting
work of mutilating slaves.[16] The price of a slave physician was fixed
at sixty solidi.[17] The great majority of physicians in Rome were
freedmen who had booths in which they prescribed and compounded, and
they were aided by freedmen and slaves who were both assistants and
pupils. The medical profession, as has been shown, never attained the
same dignity as in Greece. It should be understood that there was a
class of practising physicians in Rome quite distinct from the slave
doctors. The following account of Lucius Horatillavus, a Roman quack of
the time of Augustus, is taken from the _British Medical Journal_ of
June 10, 1911, and originated in an article in the _Societe Nouvelle_,
written by M. Fernand Mazade:--

"He was a handsome man, and came from Naples to Rome, his sole outfit
being a toga made of a piece of cloth adorned with obscene pictures and
a small Asiatic mitre. Like many of his kind at that day, he sold
poisons and invented five or six new remedies which were more or less
haphazard mixtures of wine and poisonous substances. He had the good