CELSUS, AURE'LlUS (or AULUS) CORNE'LIUS, appears to have lived in the Augustan age, but this point is by no means settled; and, as Le Chare observes, some suppose Lim to have lived under Tiberius, Caligula. Nero, or even Trajan. Yet the evidence strongly preponde rates in favour of his baring lived in the age of Augustus and perhaps that of Tiberius. This probability is strengthened by his style, which resembles that of the best writers of the Augustan age. Nor has the pretension of Coleus been thought to be perfectly ascertained; for it has been conjectured that he wee not a practical physician, but an amateur, who wrote upon physic as forming a part of philosophy. The of Glans however on the most practical points, exhibit such familiarity with the subject, that it is impossible to sup pose they could hare proceeded from any but an actual physician; and there are several passages in his work which can hardly be sup posed to refer to anything but his one practice. Thus after mentioning the method adopted by Iferaclides of Tarentum in cases of adhesion of the eyelid to the eyeball, he remarks, that he did not recollect to have seen it succeorful in a single instance (lib. vii. 7.) Calms wrote treatises on agriculture, rhetoric, and military affairs, as well as on medicine; but all have been lost except the treatise 'Do Medicine,' and some fragment. of his work on rhetoric, published by Sesta. Perna The work on medicine consists of eight books: the first gives a brief account of the history of medicine, and of the regimen to be observed by persons of various constitutions; the woond, of prognosis and diet; the third, of the treatment of general dilemmas by diet; the fourth, of the treatment of partial diseases; the fifth, of medicines and diseases to be treated by them ; the sixth, of the treatment of local diseases by medicine; the seventh, of surgical operations; the eighth, of the bones, with their diseases, fractures, and dislocations. Hippocrates and Asclepiades are the chief authors whom Cebu. follows. Ile copies the former when he treats of prognosis and of various surgical operations, where ho translates, word for word, a great number of passages; owing to which circumstance he has been called the Latin Ilippocratea But In other points he rather preferred Asclepiadee ; whence he has been clamed by some In the sect of methodist.. But not to mention the perfect Impartiality
with which he speaks of the three principal sects existiog in his time, namely, the empiric., dogmatics, and methodists (lib. I., Prof.), his practice shows that he was not a blind adherent of any party. Coleus merited the praise of an eclectic physician, and followed the sect to which be seems to incline, only so far as they followed nature. In opposition to Hippocrates, but in conformity with Asclepladee, Coleus rejects the doctrine of critical days, which he supposes to bean offshoot of the Pythagorean numbers. Nor did he copy Hippocrates in the great goseticso of bleeding, which he used far more frequently. Coleus Wad in fever when the were violent, the skin red, and tho i veils full; In pleurisy; in peripueumony if the patient was strong, but if not, dry cupping was to be employed ; in paralysis; in con vulsions; In dyspoma, when It threatened suffocation; in apoplexy ; is oases of unbearable pain ; In internal contusions ; in spitting or vomiting of blood ; and in all acute diseases, when he thought that the patient bad too much blood. He also bled In cachexis. These inatanore show that he bled more frequently than Aide/A:idea, but not mere frequently than many modern practitioners, excepting indeed in the article of owthexia. Celine used cupping glasses, both with and without etndf1ostbn; but It Is remarkable, that he does not speak of leeches, though they were used by Themieon.
As Cebu. differed from Hippocrates on the subject of bleeding, so he did likewise on that of purging. After remarking that the ancients purged end administered elysters in almost every disease, he says that aperients injure the stomach, and that the patient is weakened If the bowels are too muoh relaxed, either by medicine or clysters; and be recommends the practitioner to abstaio from their use In fever.