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# Scribonius Largus: The Roman Doctor Who Believed Medicine Had a Moral Duty
- URL: https://romanempiretimes.com/scribonius-largus-the-roman-doctor-who-believed-medicine-had-a-moral-duty/
- Published: 2026-11-11T22:55:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-11T22:55:00.000Z
- Description: He treated patients with electric fish, collected unusual remedies, and believed every physician had a duty to help. Scribonius Largus left behind a remarkable account of medicine in ancient Rome.
- Author: Christina Athanasiou
- Tags: Roman Empire Historical Facts, roman empire, Scribonius Largus, rome, Claudius, Emperor, britannia, Messalina, Tiberius, augustus, gods, hippocrates, Octavia, wine, Falernian wine, chariot, Galen, Greek

In the first century AD, a Roman physician named Scribonius Largus recorded an extraordinary collection of medical treatments. He recommended an electric fish for headaches and gout, described saving an enslaved man who was vomiting excrement, and paid an African woman living in Rome for a remedy that she had used against severe abdominal pain. His prescriptions also included treatments for epilepsy, toothache, snakebites, wounds, and injuries suffered by gladiators.

Scribonius was associated with the [imperial court during the reign of Claudius](https://romanempiretimes.com/claudius-the-unexpected-the-emperor-they-never-saw-coming/), but his surviving book reveals a much wider medical world. He learned from experienced physicians, surgeons, assistants, and people with no formal medical training. He collected recipes from different regions, investigated their ingredients, and took considerable pride in preparing medicines correctly.

He also believed that a physician had obligations extending beyond professional success. In the introduction to his *Compositiones medicamentorum*, a collection of 271 prescriptions, Scribonius argued that medicine required compassion, humanity, and a commitment never to harm those seeking treatment. For him, those responsibilities applied even when the patient was an enemy.

## A Physician in the Reign of Claudius

Little is known about Scribonius Largus before the reign of Claudius, [who ruled the Roman Empire ](https://romanempiretimes.com/why-did-the-roman-empire-fall-an-analysis-by-experts/)from AD 41 to 54\. His birthplace, family background, and dates of birth and death are unknown. Almost everything that can be established about his career comes from the information he preserved in his own medical writings.

Scribonius had connections with the imperial household through Gaius Julius Callistus, an influential freedman of Claudius. He dedicated the *Compositiones* to Callistus, thanking him for his support and for bringing his Latin medical writings to the emperor's attention. Callistus had first been given an opportunity to read the material himself and offer his opinion.

The relationship gave Scribonius access to an important imperial official, although it does not establish that he served as Claudius' personal physician. The emperor had other medical attendants, including Gaius Stertinius Xenophon, whose association with the imperial household is independently documented.

One event in Scribonius' life can be dated more securely. In AD 43, he accompanied Claudius on the expedition to Britain. He mentions the journey in a chapter concerning snakebites, referring to a plant he observed near Luna, the Italian port associated with the expedition's departure. He does not explain the exact duties he performed during the campaign.

Scribonius also displays considerable familiarity with Sicily. He discusses remedies used by Sicilian hunters, medicinal plants found on the island, and the prevalence of rabid dogs there. One of his teachers, Apuleius Celsus, came from Centuripae in Sicily. These connections have led to suggestions that Scribonius himself was Sicilian, although his writings do not identify his birthplace.

![Scribonius Largus – De compositione medicamentorum liber](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/11/Scribonius-Largus-----De-compositione-medicamentorum-liber--1--1.jpg)

Scribonius Largus – De compositione medicamentorum liber. Public domain

His medical book took shape during Claudius' reign, probably in the years following the expedition to Britain. A tooth powder [associated with Messalina](https://romanempiretimes.com/messalina-was-she-really-the-most-dangerous-woman-of-the-roman-empire/), Claudius' wife, suggests that at least that part of the collection was written before her death in AD 48\. The individual prescriptions, however, had been gathered over a longer period, including remedies associated with the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius.

## Medicine as a Moral Responsibility

Scribonius began his dedication by recalling a saying attributed to Herophilus, a Greek physician of the third century BC, who had described medicines as the hands of the gods. Scribonius admired the comparison because he believed that drugs tested through experience could accomplish remarkable things.

He had witnessed disagreements between highly regarded physicians while patients continued to suffer. Sometimes people of modest standing, with little formal medical education but considerable practical experience, were able to provide effective treatments when more celebrated practitioners could not. 

These experiences strengthened his conviction that doctors needed a thorough knowledge of medicines. He criticized physicians who neglected pharmacology or discouraged others from using drugs capable of helping patients.

For Scribonius, such behaviour was not merely incompetence. It could amount to a failure of professional morality, particularly when it arose from envy or rivalry. He believed that a physician's character had to be governed by *misericordia* and *humanitas*, compassion and humanity.

He expressed this principle forcefully in the third section of his dedication, declaring that physicians whose hearts lacked these qualities deserved the condemnation of gods and men.

His next argument extended the physician's responsibilities beyond the ordinary divisions of Roman society. Even hostility between individuals or nations could not justify using medical knowledge to injure another person.

> "Medicine does not judge people by their fortune or their character, but promises equally to help everyone who seeks its assistance, and declares that it will never harm anyone."

Scribonius distinguished the duties of a doctor from those of a citizen or soldier. A Roman might be required to fight an enemy in war, but a physician remained bound by the obligations of medicine and must not give an enemy a harmful drug.

He also appealed to the authority of Hippocrates, whom he called the founder of the medical profession. He regarded the Hippocratic Oath as a model for the moral obligations of physicians, particularly the duty to avoid deliberate harm.

> "For medicine is the knowledge of healing, not of harming."

These principles accompanied a practical understanding of treatment. Scribonius described medicine as a discipline combining regimen, drugs, and surgery. A physician should first attempt to help through suitable food and daily habits, turn to medicines when these measures proved inadequate, and resort to surgery or cauterization when necessary.

He recognized that patients often feared surgical procedures and might consent to them only when their illness left them little alternative. His collection therefore included many treatments intended to relieve suffering without immediately using a knife or cauterizing instrument.

Knowledge and moral responsibility belonged together in his understanding of the profession. Scribonius complained that people would carefully investigate a painter's skill before commissioning a portrait, yet sometimes entrusted their lives and those of their families to physicians without making comparable inquiries into their competence.

## A Collection of 271 Prescriptions

The *Compositiones medicamentorum* was designed as a practical reference work. Most of its prescriptions were arranged according to the parts of the body affected, beginning with disorders of the head and proceeding downward through the body.

![Scribonius Largus, Compositiones, 1528 ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/11/Scribonius-Largus--Compositiones--1528--1--1.jpg)

Scribonius Largus, Compositiones, 1528\. Credits: Wellcome Collection, CC BY-SA 4.0 

Scribonius started with treatments for headaches, epilepsy, eye complaints, earache, and diseases of the mouth and throat. He then addressed breathing difficulties, coughs, abdominal disorders, problems affecting the kidneys and bladder, and conditions such as gout.

The later parts of the collection dealt with snakebites, poisons, harmful drugs, and surgical treatments. These included plasters for wounds, remedies for ulcers, preparations intended to promote healing, and ointments for pain or fatigue.

Some prescriptions involved a single herb or animal substance. Others required numerous ingredients and complicated procedures involving grinding, boiling, filtering, burning, and combining drugs in carefully specified quantities.

Scribonius frequently identified the type of container to be used. Glass vessels appear throughout the collection, alongside earthenware pots and containers made from different metals. The choice of equipment was part of his instructions for preparing and preserving medicines.

A tooth powder associated with Octavia, the sister of Augustus, illustrates the attention he gave to preparation. Barley flour was mixed with vinegar and honey, worked into a mass, and divided into portions. Rock salt was added before the mixture was baked until charred, after which the material was ground into powder and scented with spikenard.

Another tooth powder, associated with Messalina, required ingredients to be dried, reduced to powder, and processed through heating. Scribonius also specified how some preparations were to be stored and used.

These recipes reveal a level of pharmaceutical activity far removed from the simple application of herbs. Physicians and those working with them needed practical knowledge of weights, equipment, heat, timing, and the behaviour of different substances.

The ingredients themselves came from many parts of the Roman world. Scribonius named particular varieties of plants, resins, wines, and animal products, sometimes insisting that an ingredient be obtained from a specific region.

His treatments also extended beyond the medicines taken internally. He described eye salves, gargles, ointments, dressings, compresses, plasters, baths, and methods of applying substances directly to painful or diseased parts of the body.

## The African Woman Who Sold Him a Remedy

One of the most memorable episodes in the *Compositiones* concerns a woman from Africa who was living in Rome. She possessed a remedy for severe intestinal pain and had reportedly used it to treat numerous patients.

Scribonius heard about the preparation and wanted to obtain its formula. He eventually succeeded after making considerable efforts and paying the woman the amount she requested.

He subsequently administered the medicine himself. According to his account, he cured several people of considerable standing, although he declined to give their names.

The recipe was unusually elaborate. Young deer antlers were cut into pieces and placed inside an earthenware pot. After the vessel had been sealed, the antlers were burned until they became pale ash, which was then stored in a clean glass container.

![A possible representation of the ingredients used in the recipe for severe intestinal pain. ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/11/REMEDY-1.jpg)

A possible representation of the ingredients used in the recipe for severe intestinal pain. Credits: Roman Empire Times, ChatGPT

When treatment was required, a measured quantity of the ash was combined with white pepper and a small amount of myrrh. A live African snail, preferably one with a heavily spotted shell, was crushed in a mortar, shell and all.

[Falernian wine was added](https://romanempiretimes.com/falernian-wine-roman-empire-favorite/), and the mixture was ground repeatedly. Scribonius explained that the grinding helped reveal fragments of shell that might otherwise remain unnoticed. The preparation was then heated over charcoal while being stirred to prevent the contents from settling and burning.

The patient also had to follow instructions concerning food. Scribonius prescribed abstinence before treatment, further doses on subsequent days, and a restricted diet of easily digested food before returning to ordinary eating habits.

He claimed that the medicine relieved pain rapidly and could prevent its recurrence. Even after successful treatment, he advised patients to exercise moderation, warning that excessive eating and drinking might produce other bodily complaints.

The episode preserves an unusual record of medical knowledge passing between people of very different social positions. Scribonius, who enjoyed access to influential officials and imperial circles, was willing to pay a woman outside the established medical profession for a remedy he considered valuable.

He did not identify her as a formally trained physician, nor did he record her name. Nevertheless, the *Compositiones* preserves her contribution in remarkable detail, including the origin of the medicine and the method by which Scribonius obtained it.

## The Enslaved Man Who Was Vomiting Excrement

Another striking case involved an enslaved man belonging to an ointment seller. The patient suffered from a severe intestinal disorder that Scribonius called *ileos*, and his condition had progressed to the point where he was vomiting fecal matter.

Scribonius regarded this as an extremely dangerous sign. He described the illness as one of the gravest conditions a physician might encounter and warned against approaching such cases with excessive confidence.

His treatment involved a warm preparation introduced through the rectum. Fenugreek was boiled in water, while rue was cooked separately in oil. The liquids were then mixed with ground natron foam and administered using a clyster tube.

Scribonius states that the treatment saved the enslaved man's life. He provides no further information about the patient's circumstances or recovery, but the episode remains one of the clearest individual case histories in his collection.

His account combines an extraordinary claim of success with an acknowledgment of the disease's severity. He had treated one patient successfully, yet still recognized that other sufferers might not survive.

The case also demonstrates the social range of the people appearing in his writings. Alongside medicines associated with emperors and wealthy households, Scribonius recorded illnesses suffered by enslaved people and individuals without public prominence.

## The Electric Fish Used Against Pain

Perhaps the best-known treatments in the *Compositiones* involve the electric ray, a marine fish capable of producing an electrical discharge.

![Torpedo Ray - Electric Ray - Torpedo panthera ](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/11/Electric-Ray--1--1.jpg)

Torpedo Ray - Electric Ray - Torpedo panthera. Credits: Coughdrop12, CC BY 2.0

In prescription 11, Scribonius recommended placing a live black electric ray against the head of a person suffering from persistent headaches. The fish was to remain in contact until the affected area became numb.

He instructed that it be removed once the desired numbness had appeared. Sometimes, he explained, more than one fish was required before the treatment produced the intended effect.

A related prescription concerned gout. The patient was instructed to stand on the wet seashore with a living black electric ray beneath the feet, allowing the fish to remain there until numbness extended from the feet toward the knees.

Scribonius claimed that the procedure relieved the immediate pain and could prevent future attacks. He also identified a patient who had benefited from it.

The man was:

> "Anteros, a freedman of Tiberius responsible for inheritances."

Scribonius reports that Anteros was cured of gout by the treatment.

> Hoc Anteros Tiberii Caesaris libertus supra hereditates remediatus est.  
> “By this treatment Anteros, a freedman of Emperor Tiberius in charge of inheritances, was cured.”

The reference to Anteros gives the account particular historical interest. It identifies a member of the imperial administration who had supposedly undergone an unusual medical procedure, rather than describing a treatment without reference to a patient.

Electric rays and their numbing effects were known in antiquity, and Scribonius' prescriptions are among the earliest surviving descriptions of their deliberate application for pain relief. The procedure involved using the fish's natural electrical discharge rather than a medicinal substance extracted from its body.

Scribonius did not claim to have invented the technique. Nor does his account establish that Claudius received such treatment, despite the appearance of that story in some modern retellings.

## Physicians, Assistants, and Secret Medicines

Scribonius' book reveals a competitive medical profession in which successful preparations could bring wealth and prestige to their owners.

He names numerous physicians whose prescriptions he had acquired, including Apuleius Celsus, Valens, Tryphon of Gortyn, and Ambrosius of Puteoli. He often credited them for their remedies, although he sometimes challenged the instructions or beliefs that accompanied particular treatments.

Ambrosius, for example, possessed a preparation for bladder stones that was associated with an unusual restriction. According to the prescription, the person making it was not supposed to wear an iron ring. Scribonius recorded the treatment but rejected that restriction as an unnecessary superstition.

An even more revealing episode concerns Paccius Antiochus, a physician whose compound medicine was reputed to help patients suffering from severe and persistent disorders.

According to Scribonius, Paccius had made substantial profits from the preparation but refused to reveal its ingredients. He compounded it behind closed doors and did not disclose the formula even to those working for him.

To protect the secret, Paccius sometimes ordered more substances to be ground than the actual recipe required. Anyone observing the preparation would therefore have difficulty determining which ingredients belonged in the finished medicine.

Scribonius made repeated efforts to obtain the formula but failed while Paccius was alive. After the physician's death, the recipe reached Tiberius in a written document and was deposited in public libraries. Scribonius was eventually able to learn the composition that had previously been withheld.

The episode illustrates the commercial value attached to pharmaceutical knowledge and the measures some practitioners took to preserve an advantage over competitors.

Another prescription came from Cassius, a physician whose remedy for intestinal pain had gained a considerable reputation. Scribonius says he obtained the authentic formula through Atimetus, an enslaved assistant accustomed to preparing the medicine for Cassius. The account also connects the remedy with Tiberius, though it does not make the precise circumstances of the bequest entirely clear.

The medicine combined numerous ingredients, including celery seed, anise, castoreum, myrrh, Indian spikenard, opium, saffron, pepper, and Attic honey. Scribonius provided the quantities and described how the substances were ground, sifted, and mixed.

Atimetus' role reveals the importance of people who prepared medicines on behalf of more prominent practitioners. Their practical knowledge could preserve the accurate composition of a remedy and make it possible for other physicians to reproduce it.

## Injuries in Everyday Roman Life

Scribonius' prescriptions also offer glimpses of injuries suffered during ordinary activities in the Roman world.

![Scribonius Largus, Compositiones, 1655](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/11/Scribonius-Largus-Compositiones--1--1.jpg)

Scribonius Largus, Compositiones, 1655\. Credits: Wellcome Collection, CC BY-SA 4.0

In one chapter, he described treatments for severe chest and side pain arising from blows, falls, excessive exertion, or carrying weights beyond a person's strength. He mentioned [bruises suffered by gladiators during their performances](https://romanempiretimes.com/things-about-roman-gladiators-you-might-not-know/), particularly those who had already been wounded.

He also included people who had fallen from tall trees or ladders and those thrown from carriages or chariots and dragged along the ground.

For injuries attributed to an identifiable physical cause, Scribonius recommended administering a particular compound medicine with vinegar. When the pain arose without an obvious injury, he prescribed the same preparation with honeyed water.

His treatment of these complaints extended to muscular contractions, tremors, and conditions he associated with impaired movement. He adjusted both the accompanying liquid and the quantity of medicine according to the nature of the complaint and the patient's strength.

Elsewhere, Scribonius addressed wounds, animal bites, bleeding, ulcers, and injuries requiring plasters or other external applications. His collection included preparations used by surgeons as well as medicines intended to avoid more invasive procedures.

The references to gladiators, falling from trees, and road accidents give the *Compositiones* a direct connection with everyday Roman experiences. They reveal the kinds of accidents and physical complaints that Scribonius considered sufficiently common to merit inclusion in his medical reference work.

## Epilepsy and the Boundaries of Medicine

The prescriptions for epilepsy present a more complicated picture of Scribonius' medical beliefs.

He recommended a variety of treatments involving herbs and animal substances. Some were accompanied by instructions concerning the age of the animal, the collection of ingredients, or the time at which the medicine should be administered.

One preparation used rennet obtained from a young deer during the first nine days of its life. Scribonius explained that the age could be recognized through the position of the fawn's ears, which initially lay back and later became upright.

The rennet was to be dried in a place protected from sunlight and moonlight. It was then administered in different quantities to children and adults over an extended period.

Scribonius also reported an additional instruction from the person who had supplied the remedy: the fawn should be killed with a weapon previously used to cut a gladiator's throat. He recorded this belief without explicitly insisting upon it himself.

Another epilepsy treatment came from a respectable Roman matron who had reportedly achieved success in treating sufferers. Scribonius preserved the preparation among his collection of remedies, acknowledging knowledge that circulated outside established medical circles.

Yet he also condemned other treatments for epilepsy. In prescription 17, he rejected the practice of consuming human blood, fragments of human skull, or parts of the liver of a dead gladiator, describing such methods as falling outside the proper profession of medicine.

His distinction was not based on the complete rejection of unusual animal substances or inherited beliefs. Rather, Scribonius drew a boundary between remedies he was willing to record and practices he considered unacceptable for physicians.

## Painful Treatments and Patients' Fears

Although Scribonius emphasized compassion, some of his recommended treatments involved considerable pain.

For disorders of the spleen, he described an external preparation containing mustard and lentils cooked in vinegar. The mixture was applied to the affected area and left in place until the patient could no longer endure the discomfort.

The patient was then placed in a warm bath. Scribonius instructed that several people should hold the sufferer because contact with the warm water intensified the pain and might cause the patient to try to escape. After the pain subsided, a wax preparation containing rose oil was to be applied.

Other treatments involved substances capable of irritating or damaging the skin. Scribonius used preparations containing quicklime, copper compounds, and other strongly acting ingredients to remove unwanted growths, clean ulcers, or encourage healing.

One particularly revealing chapter concerns the removal of marks imposed on people through punishment or confinement.

Scribonius acknowledged that such disfigurement could happen to people who had not deserved it. He illustrated the problem with the case of a steward associated with Calvisius who had been confined in an *ergastulum* following a shipwreck.

The man had been marked with letters and had failed to remove them despite attempts at treatment. Scribonius credited the surgeon Tryphon with freeing him from the disfigurement.

![Possible representation of an enslaved steward undergoing treatment to remove punitive marks from his forehead, as described by Scribonius Largus in his Compositiones medicamentorum.](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/11/Calvisius-1-1.jpg)

Possible representation of an enslaved steward undergoing treatment to remove punitive marks from his forehead, as described by Scribonius Largus in his Compositiones medicamentorum. Credits: Roman Empire Times, ChatGPT

The preparation involved irritating substances, including blister beetles. A longer surviving version of the passage describes the forehead becoming severely inflamed, followed by ulceration, dark bloody discharge, and the eventual formation of a scar.

The account combines concern for someone subjected to an undeserved punishment with a treatment that caused substantial damage to the skin. It also illustrates the harsh procedures that could accompany attempts to improve a patient's appearance or remove visible marks of disgrace.

## Rabies and the Limits of Treatment

Some of Scribonius' most revealing passages concern rabies, an illness whose advanced symptoms he regarded as virtually impossible to cure.

He described the condition that could develop after the bite of a rabid dog, particularly the terrible fear of water known as hydrophobia. Patients suffering from it could be unable to drink despite intense thirst, and Scribonius associated the illness with severe distress and death.

He preserved a remedy attributed to his teacher Apuleius Celsus of Centuripae, who reportedly prepared an antidote and sent it to his hometown regularly.

The medicine was intended for people bitten by rabid animals, before the most serious symptoms appeared. Scribonius also discussed administering it after hydrophobia had developed.

He believed that the preparation could sometimes help patients drink with less fear and reduce their suffering. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that he had never known anyone who had developed the full condition, to recover.

Another treatment reached him through a physician named Zopyros of Gortyn in Crete. Scribonius had heard about an older foreigner living on the island who supposedly treated sufferers with a substance tied to the patient's left arm.

When he asked Zopyros about the remedy, he learned that it consisted of a small piece of hyena skin wrapped in cloth.

Scribonius obtained a hyena skin but admitted that he had not tested the treatment. He also expressed the hope that he would not encounter another patient suffering from this terrible disease.

His account demonstrates his willingness to investigate unfamiliar remedies without claiming personal experience of every treatment he recorded. It also shows his readiness to offer relief when he could not promise a cure.

## What a Physician Needed to Know

Scribonius repeatedly argued that a physician's duty required practical knowledge. Good intentions were insufficient if a doctor did not understand the medicines available or the dangers associated with their use.

He was attentive to the quality of ingredients and warned that some merchants adulterated valuable substances to increase their profits. In discussing eye medicines, for example, he explained that improperly prepared or contaminated ingredients could aggravate the condition they were supposed to treat.

He also modified some inherited preparations according to his own experience. He described obtaining genuine recipes that circulated under established names but could differ in their ingredients and quantities.

His concerns extended to dangerous drugs. He believed physicians needed to recognize poisonous substances by their names and appearance so that they could avoid accidental harm and advise patients. But he condemned the deliberate acquisition of knowledge intended to make such substances lethal.

Scribonius also acknowledged the value of treatments supplied by experienced practitioners outside the medical profession. He did not dismiss a remedy simply because it originated with an unfamiliar or socially insignificant person.

At the same time, he continued to trust some preparations involving substances and procedures that had no reliable therapeutic effects. His collection combined careful attention to measurement and preparation with traditional beliefs, extraordinary claims, and treatments that could themselves cause injury.

Near the end of his book, he returned to the question of experience. Scribonius told Callistus that he had personally compounded and tested most of the prescriptions he included. The remainder, he said, came from trusted friends who had sworn that they had tested the remedies themselves.

He also recognized that the same medicine might not work equally well for everyone. Age, bodily constitution, season, and location could influence the result, even when patients suffered from what appeared to be the same condition.

These observations formed part of his practical approach to treatment. They did not make his medicine equivalent to modern medical science, but they reveal a physician concerned with the difficulties of applying general prescriptions to individual patients.

## The Survival of Scribonius' Medical Work

Scribonius' prescriptions continued to circulate after his lifetime. In the second century AD, [Galen preserved several remedies attributed to him](https://romanempiretimes.com/galen-of-pergamon-rome-most-famous-physician-galenus/), including some that do not appear in the surviving Latin *Compositiones*.

The Galenic pharmaceutical writings contain a number of explicit references to Scribonius, as well as recipes closely corresponding to those in his collection. Some of the material associated with him reached Galen through intermediary Greek medical writers, including Andromachus and Asclepiades Pharmakion, rather than necessarily through direct consultation of Scribonius' original text.

In the early fifth century AD, Marcellus Empiricus incorporated substantial portions of the *Compositiones* into his own medical collection, *De medicamentis*. The opening sequence of eleven headache prescriptions, for example, corresponds closely to the first eleven remedies in Scribonius' work.

![Marcellus, De medicamentis, ed. princeps, title page](https://storage.ghost.io/c/aa/80/aa80281a-abce-4f35-865f-05153c8cc335/content/images/2026/11/De-medicamentis--1--1.jpg)

Marcellus, De medicamentis, ed. princeps, title page. Public domain

Marcellus also rearranged other parts of the material, altered some preparations, and omitted whole groups, including the epilepsy treatments and much of the discussion of poisons. His compilation nevertheless preserved a substantial body of pharmaceutical knowledge that had circulated during Claudius' reign.

Through these later medical collections, prescriptions associated with Scribonius remained available centuries after his death. Some were copied with his name attached, while others became part of larger compilations without preserving their original attribution.

The *Compositiones* itself preserves more than a catalogue of medicines. Scribonius recorded the people from whom he learned, the patients he treated, and the practical difficulties he encountered. He described remedies that he trusted, treatments he had not yet tested, and illnesses that remained beyond his ability to cure.

In his final address to Callistus, he returned to the experience on which he had built his collection. Most of the preparations had been tested by Scribonius himself; the others came from trusted individuals who affirmed that they had used them successfully. He also acknowledged that age, bodily constitution, season, and location could alter the results of treatment.

For Scribonius Largus, a physician's responsibility was to acquire the knowledge needed to treat the sick and to use that knowledge for their benefit. The medicine he practised belonged firmly to the first century, with its complicated preparations, traditional beliefs, and painful procedures. Yet he insisted that the person administering those treatments must be guided by compassion, humanity, and an obligation to do no deliberate harm.

💡

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Jocks, Ianto Thorvald. **Scribonius Largus' Compounding of Drugs (Compositiones medicamentorum): Introduction, Translation, and Medico-Historical Comments*. PhD thesis, University of Glasgow, 2020, Volumes I and II.  
  
Oberhelman, Steven M. “Largus, Scribonius.” In **The Encyclopedia of Ancient History*. Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.  
  
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Scribonius Largus, **Compositiones medicamentorum*.