Ars Medicinae

The centrality of man in Pliny’s universe suggests that Nature’s most important task is to support the existence of the human race. Much praise is lavished on her provision of remedia which ensure humana salus. Here. it would seem. is a promising field for man̎s activity in nature. To be skilled in the art of healing fellow men should earn Pliny’s highest praise. After all, for man to aid man is, by his own definition. godlike (2. 18). Instead, medici are the victims of a lengthy tirade. initiated by quotation from Cato and embellished by Pliny himself (29. 13 ff.). However, this passage makes two things clear: Pliny says that it is the ars, not medicina itself. which is under attack. By this. he means not so much the body of theory. as the body of people who practise it. the medical profession. who consisted mostly of Greeks. Pliny’s criticism of medicine is. in fact. criticism of the way man’s activity can misuse Nature̎s most basic gifts. a theme by now familiar from the preceding studies of Pliny’s thought. Indeed. by examining how the ars can be said to have corrupted medicina. we encounter many of the Plinian ideas on the use and abuse of ratio, such as the questions of false ingenuity, caeca subtilitas, and the balance of theory and practice. The motivation both of the practitioners and of the patients themselves brings up familiar ideas on the right attitude to life generally. These include the contrast between idle luxury and the independent self-sufficiency of the individual. and Pliny’s humanitarian ideal.

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