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A surgeon’s house in Roman times

London: Ever wondered what a trip to the doctor would have been like in Roman times? Well, nothing so unusual as you would have imagined.

Medical instruments discovered from a surgeon’s house unearthed by archaeologists in Italy show that doctors, their surgeries and the ailments they treated have not changed much in 1,800 years, The Sunday Telegraph reported here. “This is the largest find of surgical instruments anywhere,” the curator of the Romano-British collection at the British Museum and an expert in ancient medicine, Ralph Jackson, was quoted as saying.

Among the 150 different implements discovered is a rare iron tool used to extract arrowheads from wounds, which suggests the doctor had experience as a military surgeon. The other items uncovered include scalpels, scales, mortars and vases used for the preparation and conservation of medicines. The most unexpected find was a piece of equipment that would delight a modern podiatrist — a ceramic hot water bottle in the shape of a foot, into which oil or water could be poured when the foot was inserted.

“It tells us a great deal of how he worked and the range of procedures he undertook because of its completeness. All previous finds have been only partial. The healer almost certainly concocted anaesthetic preparations of white mandrake, henbane and opium poppies,” Dr. Jackson said.

The stunning discovery also revealed that sore joints were common, patients were often told to change their diets, and the good doctor of the seaside town of Rimini even used to attend house calls. “Joint problems were the single most common complaint in Roman times, and they were probably treated with heat and cold,” Dr. Jackson said. The discovery suggests that the doctor used diet as a first approach to treat a disease, then drugs prepared from plants in a pestle and mortar, and finally surgery. That could include anything from pulling teeth — dental forceps were part of his equipment — to opening a patient’s fractured skull to remove bone fragments.

“One of the most exciting finds was a lenticular, a small chisel used for opening the skull safely after gouging a channel into it with another instrument,” Dr. Jackson said. The operation theatres were similar to those in a modern surgery, complete with a table and a high-backed leather chair for the doctor, and an operating room with a bed along one wall. Scratched on the wall was “Eutyches”, which is believed to have been the doctor’s name.

In fact, the archaeologists have spent the past 17 years at the Domus del Chirurgo or House of the Surgeon, excavating the site and compiling the world’s most detailed portrait of medical treatment in Roman times. The house, built in the second century BC and burnt down in about AD 260, is one of several discovered beneath Rimini’s Piazza Ferrari when a tree was uprooted in 1989. — PTI

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