Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/161



THE STATE OF MEDICINE AT ROME AFTER THE DEATH OF ASCLEPIADES; THE FOUNDING OF THE SCHOOL OF THE METHODISTS

In summing up the effects which were produced by the teaching and practice of Asclepiades upon the science and art of medicine, Dr. Meyer-Steineg makes the remark that the wide and ready acceptance of both depended largely upon the personal character of the man, upon the manner in which he carried out the measures which he advocated, and upon the fact that the Romans happened at that period of their history to be ready to respond favorably to such new doctrines and therapeutic methods; but that, as soon as his strong personality had ceased to exert its influence, as it did after he had passed the active period of his life, and also because Rome did not at that moment possess any physicians who were sufficiently endowed with his medical gifts and sagacity to perpetuate his art, both it and his doctrines began to lose ground. Nevertheless, as this writer states, Asclepiades had already succeeded admirably in preparing the way for a further development of the healing art, and for this valuable service full credit should be given him.

Not long after the death of Asclepiades, Antonius Musa, the personal physician of the Emperor Augustus, succeeded, by means of hydrotherapy, in curing his royal patient of a protracted gouty or rheumatic affection from which he had been a sufferer; and, as a mark of gratitude for the cure which he had effected, the Emperor raised him