Scribonius Largus Designatianus ( – ) was the court physician to the Roman emperor

Claudius Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; ; 1 August 10 BC – 13 October AD 54), or Claudius, was a Roman emperor, ruling from AD 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, Claudius was born to Nero Claudius Drusus, Drusus and Ant ...

. Around 47 AD, at the request of Gaius Julius Callistus, the emperor's freedman, he drew up a list of 271 prescriptions (''Compositiones''), most of them his own, although he acknowledged his indebtedness to his tutors, to friends, and to the writings of eminent physicians. Certain traditional remedies are also included. The work has no pretensions to style, and contains many colloquialisms, and has been cited by

Peter Suber Peter Dain Suber (born November 8, 1951) is an American philosopher specializing in the philosophy of law and open access to knowledge. He is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Director of the Harvard Office fo ...

as a forerunner of

Open Access Open access (OA) is a set of principles and a range of practices through which nominally copyrightable publications are delivered to readers free of access charges or other barriers. With open access strictly defined (according to the 2001 de ...

. The greater part of it was transferred without acknowledgment to the work of Marcellus Empiricus (c. 410), ''De Medicamentis Empiricis, Physicis, et Rationabilibus'', which is of great value for the correction of the text of Largus. See the edition of the ''Compositiones'' by S. Sconocchia (

Teubner The Bibliotheca Teubneriana, or ''Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana'', also known as Teubner editions of Greek and Latin texts, comprise one of the most thorough modern collections published of ancient (and some medieva ...

1983), which replaced the well-outdated edition of G. Helmreich (Teubner 1887). ''Compositiones'' makes the earliest known allusion to the Hippocratic oath. Largus is credited with an early description peripheral nerve stimulation in the form of shocks from electric fish to provide relief from gout and headaches. There is an obscure Latin inscription that mentions a "Lucius Scribonius Asclepiades" that Rhodius believed to indicate this Scribonius, but most scholars consider this very doubtful. Greenhill, William Alexander (1870). "Asclepiades (5)". In Smith, William (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. p. 382.

Works

* ''De compositione medicamentorum liber''. Cratandrus, Basileae 152
Digital edition
by the

University and State Library Düsseldorf The University and State Library Düsseldorf (, abbreviated ULB Düsseldorf) is a central service institution of Heinrich Heine University. Along with Bonn and Münster, it is also one of the three State Libraries of North Rhine-Westphalia. ...

* Kai Brodersen: ''Scribonius Largus, Der gute Arzt / Compositiones''. Latin and German. Marix, Wiesbaden 2016. *Scribonius Largus and Joelle Jouanna Bouchet (ed.) ''Compositions médicales'' (''Collection des universités de France. Série latine''; 412). Paris : Les Belles lettres, 2016, cop. 2016. .

References

*James Grout
''Scribonius Largus'', part of the Encyclopædia Romana
{{DEFAULTSORT:Scribonius Largus Ancient Roman writers Silver Age Latin writers 1st-century Roman physicians 1st-century writers Scribonii 10s births 1st-century deaths Year of death uncertain