Thessalus of Tralles

Thessalos of Tralles was a successful doctor in the first half of the first century AD He lived and worked in Rome and was the successor Themisons the leading representatives of the medical school of the methodologist.

The few known facts of his life are narrated by Galen and Pliny the Elder. Thessalos came from Tralles and spent the son of a wealthy few ( μοχδηρώς = miserable, sorrowful ) father's youth would tugging at the refuge. Nevertheless, he managed to climb to the well-known doctor. He addressed a letter to the Emperor Nero, in which he boasted of having founded a medical school, which surpasses all previous ones. The entourage, with whom he appeared in public, surpassing the actor and racing driver of his time and his tomb on the Appian Way he left with the inscription iatronicen ( conqueror of the doctors, winner among all physicians ) provided.

Caelius Aurelianus describes him as unus e principibus nostris, ie as one of the leading physicians of the methodologist. He also quotes from two books of Thessalos ( De regulis, "On the healthy way of life " ) and mentions a book on surgery. Overall, however, he calls Thessalos not as common as other doctors of the methodologists, has him even after treatment failure and even proterua festinatio ( = irresponsible haste ).

Even Galen often speaks negatively about Thesallos from, especially about his teaching: he promises to teach the art of medicine several students at the same time in six months, disgusted him. However, the negative judgment of Galen ' not free from professional jealousy. Thessalos the methodical school has evolved, in particular the separation of the treatment of acute and chronic diseases.

From the works of Thessalos, also mentioned by Galen, nothing received. After Caelius Aurelianus it will not be mentioned again. The astrological - medical treatise preserved, which has been associated with Thessalos, should not come from him.

Swell

• Caelius Aurelianus: De morbis Acutis et chronicis, edited by Gerhard Bendz, Berlin, 1990.
• Galen: Galen Claudii opera omnia, edited by Karl Gottlob Kühn, Leipzig, 1821.
• C. Plinius Secundus the Elder, Natural History Book XXIX, edited and translated by Roderick King in collaboration with Joachim Hopp, Darmstadt, 1991.