bly and
bought a surgery for him; but his methods were rather violent, and he
made much use of the knife and caustics, earning for himself the title
of "butcher," and thus having fallen into disfavour, he was glad to
depart from Rome. A College of AEsculapius and of Health was established
154 B.C., but this was not a teaching college in the present meaning of
the term.

The doctors of Ancient Rome took no regular course of study, nor were
any standards specified, but as a rule knowledge was acquired by
pupilage to a practising physician, for which a honorarium was paid.
Subsequently the Archiatri, after the manner of trade guilds, received
apprentices, but Pliny had cause to complain of the system of medical
education, or rather, to deplore the want of it. He wrote: "People
believed in anyone who gave himself out for a doctor, even if the
falsehood directly entailed the greatest danger. Unfortunately, there is
no law which punishes doctors for ignorance, and no one takes revenge on
a doctor if through his fault someone dies. It is permitted him by our
danger to learn for the future, at our death to make experiments, and,
without having to fear punishment, to set at naught the life of a human
being."

Before the time when Greek doctors settled in Rome, medical treatment
was mainly under the direct charge of the head of each household. The
father of a family had great powers conferred upon him by the Roman law,
and was physician as well as judge over his family. If he took his
new-born infant in his arms he recognized him as his son, but otherwise
the child had no claim upon him. He could inflict the most dire
punishments on members of his household for which they had no redress.

Cato, the Elder, who died in B.C. 149, wrote a guide to domestic
medicine for the use of Roman fathers of the Republic, but he was a
quack and full of self-conceit. He hated the physicians practising in
Rome, who were mostly Greeks, and thought that their knowledge was much
inferior to his own. Plutarch relates that Cato knew of the answer given
to the King of Persia by Hippocrates, when sent for professionally, "I
will never make use of my art in favour of barbarians who are enemies of
the Greeks," and pretended to believe that all Greek physicians were
bound by the same rule, and animated by the same motives. However, Cato
did a great deal of good by attempting to lessen the vice and luxury of
his age.

The Greeks in Rome were looked at a