从阿斯克勒庇俄斯到埃斯库拉庇乌斯:罗马的医学与医生

From Asclepius to Aesculapius:Medicine and the Doctor in Rome

公元前3世纪初,从埃皮达鲁斯(Epidaure)出发的阿斯克勒庇俄斯(Asclépios)的蛇降落在罗马台伯岛。在这一传奇事件之后,岛上建立了一座神庙,供奉着此后以拉丁文埃斯库拉庇乌斯(Esculape)命名的神。这个故事标志着希腊医学和医生在罗马社会迅速占据主导地位的开始。就像技艺和科学一样,罗马开始了对希腊医学的文化适应过程,尽管形式不同,却是同一文化交融的一部分。仅举例而言,这一文化交融还建立了拉丁哲学或史诗。这种融合源于科学理性的希腊医学与罗马本土医学之间的相遇,罗马本土医学是由传统和经验药方组成的,往往带有迷信和巫术色彩,就像我们从老加图和老普林尼处所知道的那样。凯尔苏斯的《医术》证明了这一点,这是流传至今的第一部拉丁医学著作。这部专著与《希波克拉底文集》和盖伦的巨作构成了古代医学的三大巨作。在一种精巧的文学形式下,凯尔苏斯表现出与希腊模式背后的拉丁文学作品同样明显的意大利特色。紧接在凯尔苏斯之后,斯克利波尼乌斯·拉尔古斯的《药方》在一定程度上也是如此。在接下来的几个世纪里,拉丁医学文献打破了这种独特融合,一些作家几乎完全借鉴了老普林尼流传下来的民间药方,如马塞勒斯·恩丕里柯(Marcellus Empiricus)和加尔吉留斯·马尔古利斯(Gargilius Martialis);而另一些作家则完全遵循希腊医学传统,如卡修斯·菲利克斯(Cassius Felix)和塞利乌斯·奥雷利安努斯(Caelius Aurelianus)。

At the beginning of the third century B.C.,the serpent of Asclepius coming from Epidauros landed in Rome on the Tiberian Island.Following this legendary event,a temple was erected on the island to the god who now bears the Latin name of Aesculapius.This story marks the beginning of the rapidly dominating presence of Greek medicine and physicians in Roman society.As with the arts and sciences,Rome then began a process of acculturation with Greek medicine which,although in different forms,was nevertheless part of the same cultural mixing that founded,to name but a few examples,Latin philosophy or epic.This interaction is born from the encounter between scientific and rational Greek medicine,and Roman indigenous medicine made up of traditional and empirical recipes,often tinged with superstition and magic,as we know them from Cato and Pliny.The De medicina of Celsus(1st c.AD),the first Latin medical work that has come down to us,bears witness to this.This treatise constitutes,together with the Hippocratic Corpus and the monumental work of Galen,one of the three pillars writings of ancient medicine.Using an elaborate literary form,Celsus manifests the same Italic singularity that is so significant in the Latin literature based on his Greek models.To a lesser extent,this is also the case of for Scribonius Largus'treatise De medicamentis,which just post-dates Celsus.The Latin medical literature of the following centuries breaks with this cross-cultural originality,with some authors,such as Marcellus Empiricus or Gargilius Martialis,drawing almost exclusively on the popular recipes handed down by Pliny,while others,such as Cassius Felix or Caelius Aurelianus,were just as exclusively part of the Greek medical tradition.