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Asclepiades Bithynus, a very celebrated physician of Bithynia, who acquired a
considerable degree of popularity at Rome at the beginning of the first century
B. C., which he maintained through life, and in a certain degree transmitted to
his successors. It is said that he first came to Rome as a teacher of rhetoric
(Plin. H. N. xxvi. 7), and that it was in consequence of iris not being successful
in this profession, that he turned his attention to that the study of medicine.
From what we learn of his [p. 382] history and of his practice, it would appear
that he may be fairly characterized as a man of natural talents, acquainted with
human nature (or rather with human weakness), possessed of considerable shrewdness
and address, but with little science or professional skill. He began (upon the
plan which is so generally found successful by those who are conscious of their
own ignorance) by vilifying the principles and practice of his predecessors, and
by asserting that he had discovered a more compendious and effective mode of treating
diseases than had been before known to the world. As he was ignorant of anatomy
and pathology, he decried the labours of those who sought to investigate the structure
of the body, or to watch the phenomena of disease, and he is said to have directed
his attacks more particularly against the writings of Hippocrates. It appears,
however, that he had the discretion to refrain from the use of very active and
powerful remedies, and to trust principally to the efficacy of diet, exercise,
bathing, and other circumstances of this nature. A part of the great popularity
which he enjoyed depended upon his prescribing the liberal use of wine to his
patients (Plin. H. N. vii. 37, xxiii. 22), and upon his not only attending in
all cases, with great assiduity, to everything which contributed to their comfort,
but also upon his flattering their prejudices and indulging their inclinations.
By the due application of these means, and from the state of the people among
whom he practised, we may, without much difficulty, account for the great eminence
at which he arrived, and we cannot fail to recognise in Asclepiades the prototype
of more than one popular physician of modern times. Justice, however, obliges
us to admit, that he seems to have possessed a considerable share of acuteness
and discernment, which on some occasions he employed with advantage. It is probable
that to him we are indebted, in the first instance, for the arrangement of diseases
into the two great classes of Acute and Chronic (Cael. Aurel. De Morb. Chron.
iii. 8), a division which has a real foundation in nature, and which still forms
an important feature in the most improved modern nosology. In his philosophical
principles Asclepiades is said to have been a follower of Epicurus, and to have
adopted his doctrine of atoms and pores, on which he attempted to build a new
theory of disease, by supposing that all morbid action might be reduced into obstruction
of the pores and irregular distribution of the atoms. This theory he accommodated
to his division of diseases, the acute being supposed to depend essentially upon
a constriction of the pores, or an obstruction of them by a superfluity of atoms;
the chronic, upon a relaxation of the pores or a deficiency of the atoms. Nothing
remains of his writings but a few fragments, which have been collected and published
by Gumpert in the little work mentioned above. There is a poem containing directions
respecting health (hugieina parangelmata) which is ascribed to Asclepiades of
Bithynia, but a writer in the Rheinisches Museeum has shewn, that this poem could
not have been written before the seventh century after Christ.
The age at which Asclepiades died and the date of his death are unknown;
but it is said that he laid a wager with Fortune, engaging to forfeit his character
as a physician if he should ever suffer from any disease himself. Pliny, who tells
the anecdote (H. N. vii. 37), adds, that he won his wager, for that he reached
a great age and died at last from an accident.
This text is from: A dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology, 1873 (ed. William Smith). Cited Oct 2005 from The Perseus Project URL below, which contains interesting hyperlinks
Gallus, Aelius, an ancient writer on pharmacy, frequently quoted by Galen. He is probably the
person sometimes called simply Aelius (Gal. De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. iv.
7), sometimes Gallus (ibid. iii. 1, iv. 8), and sometimes by both names (De Antid.
ii. 1). In one passage (De Compos. Medicam. sec. Gen. vi. 6) Talios Ailios is
apparently a mistake for Gallos Ailios. He is quoted by Asclepiades Pharmacion
(apud Gal. De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. iv. 7.), and Andromachus (apud. Gal.
ibid. iii. 1), and must have lived in the first century after Christ, as he is
said to have prepared an antidote for one of the emperors, which was also used
by Charmis, who lived in the reign of Nero, A. D. 54-68 (Gal. De Antid. ii. 1).
Haller (Biblioth. Medic. Pract. and Biblioth. Botan.) supposes that there were
two physicians of the name of Aelius Gallus; but this conjecture, in the writer's
opinion, is not proved to be correct, nor does it seem to be required.
Besides this Gallus, there is another physician of the name, M. Gallus,
who is sometimes said to have had the cognomen Asclepiades; but this appears to
be a mistake, as, in the only passage where he is mentioned (Gal. De Compos. Medicam.
sec. Loc. viii. 5), instead of Gallou Markou tou Asklepiadou, we should probably
read Gallou Markou tou Asklepiadeiou, i. e. the follower of Asclepiades of Bithynia.
Hymeas, (Humees), a son-in-law of Dareius Hystaspis, acted as a general of his against the revolted Ionians, and was one of those who defeated the rebels near Ephesus in B. C. 499. In the following year Hymeas took the town of Cius on the Propontis, and reduced the Aeolians and Gergithians, in the midst of which successes he was carried off by illness. (Herod. v. 102, 111, 116.)
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