Note 375 — WAS THE ROMAN ARMY PROVIDED WITH MEDICAL OFFICERS?

Historia Naturalis, lib. xxvi. c. 1. Pliny states that the Egyptians even prosecuted the study of morbid anatomy by dissection:—“In Ægypto, regibus corpora mortuorum ad scrutandos morbos insecantibus.”—(Lib. xix. c. 5.) Galen advised those who desired, in his day, to become acquainted with human osteology, to repair for that purpose to Alexandria, for this potent reason, that there were two actual human skeletons preserved in that city.—See Kühn’s edit. of Galen, vol. ii. p. 220.