Talk:Medicine in ancient Rome

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Contents 1 Opium not morphine 2 Skepticism 3 Major Additions 4 Merger proposal

[edit] Opium not morphine

I think this article needs more reference to Ancient Greek medicine and Humorism, which heavily influenced Roman medicine. Also, this article mentions morphine, which did not exists in Ancient Rome. Morphine is opium based, which I think is where the confusion lies. Opium would have been available to the Ancient Romans, but any mention of morphine should be removed from this article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Primvspilvs (talk • contribs) 18:15, August 21, 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Skepticism

I know the request is to help expand the article, but I've taken the liberty of removing this section:

"There was also a raving sect of ancient Roman people who saw the medical profession as a chance to get rich quick, as these were that days before the Hippocratic oath and no qualifications were required in order to classify yourself as a doctor. Many of these were complete witch doctors who used cures like sliced black mouse. Conversely, there were some quack medical ideas that have some medical soundness today, like the use of cobwebs to stem the flow of blood."

The first reason is that it doesn't read like an encyclopaedia entry. Frankly it reads like a bit of a rant ("raving sect"; "complete witch doctors"). Plus, I'd like some confirmation that Roman doctors didn't recognise the Hippocratic Oath, which was devised in the 4th Century BC, and thus only a few hundred years of Rome's history were 'before' it. - Shrivenzale 22:54, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Very good. In fact I would like to take this a little bit further and propose a (partial) re-writing of the introduction: it seems to contradict itself and quite obviously some add-ons haven't been properly integrated into the overall structure. Anyone with me on this? Also, anybody knows why this article has not been rated yet?

[edit] Major Additions

I have added a section on Asclepieions in Roman Medicine and increased both the introduction and section on Galen. I hope nobody minds, I did it on the recommendation by Wiki and because I personally felt I could further the article. I would also like to add more to this article in the near future. MasterOfHisOwnDomain (talk) 12:44, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger proposal

There seems to be a lot of overlap with Medical community of ancient Rome. I proposed a merge as a way of sorting these two articles out. Whogue (talk) 14:54, 4 May 2008 (UTC)