Roman Medicine

When looking for a topic, I chose Roman Medicine. This topic interested me because I was really curious how people in ancient times would be able to handle sickness and disease. 
Medicine is a huge and essential part of our lives that allows us to cure illness and prevent disease. Over the years there have been countless breakthroughs and discoveries. With these, medicine has come an extremely long way from ancient times. But what would happen if we, today in 2015, were only educated as much as the Romans were about their health. If this were true, people with something as simple as a cold could be at risk of death. This is because the Romans were extremely under-educated when it came to medicine.

They had very little amounts of medicine, but would usually just use prevention to keep them from getting sick. Romans were under the impression that a healthy mind would bring them a healthy body. This not only made them oblivious to all the dangers of the diseases they had, but also prevented them from coming up with cures. If we were only as educated as the Romans were then we would suffer greatly because there were no roman doctors. The head of each household was in charge of the well being of his family and would often use herbal cures to treat his household. It wasn't until the ancient Greeks came along that doctors were introduced. When the roman empire expanded into Greece, the Greeks had a huge influence on the growth of Roman medicine. Although the Romans refused to copy Greek idea’s, they would improve them and turn them into their own. 

There were many negative things about roman medicine, but the Romans did have a few beneficial things that they did which helped them. One of those things was the bone lever (Surgical Instruments). The bone lever was invented by the Romans to take a fractured or broken bone and hold it in the right place. The Romans also had the bone forceps which allowed the Romans to open someones skull and take out tumors in the brain. This contraption was known as one of the most advanced tool the Romans had.

Since Romans believed that a healthy mind led to a healthy body they had many superstitions. One of them was that where they lived effected how healthy they were. (Medical News Today). They would try to live in places that were close to fresh water and also places that were out of the way of pollution or anything else bad. Based on the techniques and knowledge Romans had, if we had the same medical advances and techniques life for us would be extremely different, and the survival rate for any illness would be much lower. People with cancer and other diseases would have absolutely no chance. The breakthroughs and discoveries in medicine have been extremely necessary, because if we only knew as much as the Romans did, life would be much much harder.

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sources:
"Medicine in Ancient Rome." Medicine in Ancient Rome. N.p., 12 Dec. 2000. Web. 21 Dec. 2014.

Medical News Today. MediLexicon International, 14 May 2008. Web. 21 Dec. 2014.

"Roman Medicine." Roman Medicine. N.p., 17 Feb. 2002. Web. 21 Dec. 2014.

"Surgical Instruments from Ancient Rome - Ancient Roman Surgical Instruments." Ancient Roman Surgical Instruments. N.p., 23 Feb. 2012. Web. 21 Dec. 2014.