Flourishing 25 C.E.
Medical Writer

Advanced Ideas. The only established biographical information on Celsus is that he was alive in Rome in 25/26 C.E., during the reign of Tiberius. He was a member of the illustrious Cornelian family. His eight-book work on medicine is the only surviving part of a larger encyclopedia, Artes. Modern scholars debate without conclusion whether he was a physician or simply a brilliant scholar who wrote in clear, concise Latin, and they also disagree on what school of medicine he appears to have been a member of. Some of his instructions reveal that medicine was advanced in some areas, as he advocated cleanliness and oils that may have worked as antiseptics. Later knowledge about ancient medical history relies heavily on his first surviving work.

Sources:

John Scarborough, Roman Medicine (London: Thames & Hudson, 1969; Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1969).

J. T. Vallance...