Cassius Felix is a Roman African medical writer probaby native of Constantina. He is known for having written in AD 447 a Latin treatise titled De Medicina. The little we can say of the author comes from his book, that is meant to be a simple handbook for practical use in which he wants others to be able to take advantage of his experience as a physician. His work appears to draw heavily, both directly and indirectly, on Greek medical sources, as was common in the African school of medicine.[1]
A Christian by faith, he may be the person mentioned in passing in the anonymous De miraculis Sancti Stephani, a work written between 418 and 427, where a certain Felix is referred as holding the high medical dignity of archiater, or chief doctor of his community.[2]
The editio princeps of his work was first published in 1879 in a Teubner edition edited by Valentin Rose.[3]
The name Cassius Felix is sometimes also applied[4] to Cassius Iatrosophista, an earlier Greek medical writer (2nd or 3rd century AD) known only as the author of 84 or 85 Quaestiones Medicae et Problemata Naturalia (Ancient Greek: Ἰατρικαὶ Ἀπορίαι καὶ Προβλήματα Φυσικά).[5]