This fresco from the first-century ruins of Pompeii show that Ancient Roman physicians knew how to practice surgery. In a world without the scientific method, knowledge of germ theory, or antibiotics, doctors could get a lot wrong. However, they got enough right to establish some medical practices that endured for ages, and have influenced medicine today.
The work of encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus (died around 50CE) is a case in point. In _De Medicina_, Celsus invented the use of the word “cancer,” taken from the Latin word for “crab.” He was also the first to record what the medical world now calls the “Celsus tetrad of inflammation” — with the symptoms “calor” (heat), “dolor” (pain), “tumor” (swelling), and “rubor” (redness).
Source(s): Image wikipedia commons. _World Neurosurgery_ , vol 133, Jan 2020, pp. 127-134, Giuseppe Talamonti rd so. Https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wneu.2019.09.119 .
