… c.117 CE, that is. Ruth Downie, in Medicus: A Novel of the Roman Empire, creates a vivid and imaginative picture about what the book's protagonist, the army doctor Gaius Petreius Ruso, and his collegue Valens do and how a military camp hospital is run, orderlies, patients, and all. But what was their actual medical knowledge?
The University of Virginia's Health Sciences Library has a section Antiqua Medicina, From Homer to Vesalius. The credits say, "This electronic display was generated from materials assembled for a print exhibit of the same name created in fall 1996 for Historical Collections in the Claude Moore Health Sciences Library." Included is a brief section, Military Medicos, with an image from Trajan's Column, and of interest is also Surgery and Surgical Instruments.
Much more informative and nicely illustrated – at Medical Innovations and War – is Ancient Rome and the Advent of Sophisticated Medicine. Unfortunately, however, no sources whatsoever are cited.
Wikipedia (as usual handle with care) has a Timeline of medicine and medical technology, which gives an indication what Ruso would have known and trained in. There are also Medical community of ancient Rome and Medicine in ancient Rome (with a notation that these should be merged). A general site on ancient medicine is The Asclepion at the University of Indiana, culled from the site Roman Medicine, which list a number of related links. Smiths' Dictionary at Lacus Curtius has Medicina and Chirurgia.
The most famous physician of ancient times was Galen, but he wasn't born yet at the time the novel takes place. Online in English is his On the Natural Faculties. This can also be read at MIT, and at the Internet Archive. Galen was influential way into the 17th century.
Galen Of Pergamum at Britannica.
The image above right is from Wikimedia Commons: "The doctor Japyx heals Aeneas (sided by his mother, goddess Venus, and by his own son Anchises, who is weeping), wounded on one leg. Ancient Roman fresco from the "Surgeon's House"; in Ariminum (Rimini, Italy); mid 3th century. On display at the Museo della città di Rimini."
