DIVI BOTANICI. 



27 



the counsel of other physicians, Musa caused them to be disconti- 

 nued—substituting cold fomentations, whereby a cure was happily 

 effected. With seeming gratitude for this achievement, but not 

 without adulation of a liberal despot, a servile senate conferred on 

 the emancipated healer of Augustus the distinction of having a 

 statue of brass consecrated to his honour, and erected beside that of 

 TEsculapius, whom the Roman people reverenced by the institution 

 of divine rites and a devoted worship. 



Dion Cassius communicates additional notices* relative to the for- 

 tunes of Musa, his " method," and his medical as well as civil pre- 

 ferments. Thus, when sinking under an inveterate disease, Augus- 

 tus had renounced all hope of recovery, and made final arrangements 

 with a view to his impending dissolution ; and when he was unable to 

 follow the course held to be indispensably requisite ; Antonius Musa 

 restored him to health with the use of cold lavations or ablutions, and 

 cold potations or drinks. For this important service, the physician 

 received ample pecuniary rewards, f both from his patient and from 

 the senate : the privilege of wearing a gold ring* (for he was a 

 freed-man) was also conferred upon him ; and he obtained exemp- 

 tion from imposts of every kind, not for himself only, but for the 



explicit in stating-that the remedial means prescribed by Musa were fru 

 gida, cold ; and that they were /omenta, fomentations with cold water, distin- 

 guished clearly from balneum or balineum, general immersion in a bath. The 

 « cold affusion" might have been employed in this ca.e ; or, probably it was 

 treated with local sponging with the liquid at the cool or cold temperature. 



• Cassii Dionis Cocceiani Histories Romance qua supersunt, curante H. S. 

 Reimaro, grcBci. et latine ; folio, Hamburgi, 1750 ; vol. i., p. 724-5. _ 



+ Sestertium Quadringentics, a bountiful Honarium! but, to determine here 

 its precise amount in sterling pounds, would be to withdraw a pleasant 

 exercise from the reader's calculating faculty. 



t The « usm Twndi aurer was a patrician privilege; it constituted the 

 ornamental badge of nobility. Musa received this honour as a token of the 

 Emperor's gratitude; and, out of respect to this physician, the right of 

 wearing a gold ring was extended to members of the medical profession. 

 Such a gewgaw, fair emblem of " Routinity," still occupies the place of an 

 appendage to the garniture which deciphers the attainments of a "medical 

 gentleman." Among the Roman institutions, there was a particular census 

 which enjoined the rule, that a person must be a gentleman whose father 

 and paternal grandfather possessed property worth £3229 3s. 4d. before lie 

 could claim the privilege of wearing a gold ring, or become an aspirant tor 

 the patent of nobilitv. Pliny instructed his countrymen in the " literature 

 and science" of rings and coronets, in the first and second chapters of the 

 thirty-third book of bis Natural History. See also Arbuthnot's elaborate 

 Tabhsof Ancient Coins, Weights, and Measures, explained and ewempHfied in 

 n ,, i, ,:,,„,: ; it.., London, I7-7. p. 176- 



