Antique medicine


Trier, about 200 AD. 


Medicines were stored in pots of various kinds and shipped. Thus, the preparation "Lykion" was packed in small, cup-like wells made of clay, occasionally also of lead, which each held a few milliliters. Some of the containers bear the name Lykion, others an alepsis head or an Apollo tripod symbolizing the medical content.

Other medicines were filled into vials, with the contents probably being read on the label on the closure or on an attached label. Since the glasses are not inscribed, they can only be identified as medication bottles in combination with the excavated pieces.
In Rome, glass was used as a material for medicine and cosmetic vessels, after the secret of its production had gradually come to Europe via Syria and the Phoenicians. In the 2nd century BC Chr. Glass blowing was invented.

It presents a 132 mm high salve vessel excavated in Trier, a so-called "balsamarium" with a slightly flattened bottom. This form of glass container was very common - far too common to be medication bottles.


Several vials, very similar to the vial shown here, are dispensed as a medical vial in the book "The Collection" by B. Olonetzky, Thieme-Verlag 1980, p. 88). The so-called "medicinal bottles", however, are in the vast majority of cases so-called "lacrimalia" - bottles in which the bereaved catch their tears in order to put them in the grave of the dead person as proof of their deeply felt grief.

All the stories and paraphrases for a funeral ritual in which the Romans put a perfume bottle next to the embalmed body of their dead before the grave was sealed ...

Peter Ustinov as "Nero" in the movie "Quo Vadis": when he crushed a tear, he called for his tear glass to catch the tear ...


Such bottles were also found in Luxembourg: "Roman coins were found at the" Halerbach "in the early 19th century, and in 1859 other coins were discovered, as well as two "urns ", two teardrops and two" copper vases ": Nero, Titus 'and Constantius I mentions' (Weiller 1972, 366, No. 158, Carte Arch. Lux. 12, 1980, 44; Publ. Section Hist. Inst. Luxembourg 3, 1847, 190). Nothing prevented the Roman doctor or pharmacist from selling his sacks in the same kind of vials!

Antique medicine

Vial, standing

Glas römisches 2

In a legion camp, as in Vindonissa, the military doctor had to treat not only common ailments such as colds, toothaches or eye diseases, but also open wounds and broken bones. He used it

- Frankincense (Olibanum), which stopped bleeding and cleansed wounds.

- the true centaury (Centaurium erythraea) and the

- Ribwort plantain (Plantago lanceolata) is said to have accelerated wound healing (also used in the obviously very common eye diseases).

- Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) in burns.

- the black henbane (Hyoscyamus niger) and

- The Mandrake (Mandragora officinarum) were in great demand as painkillers and narcotics.


However, the most commonly used narcotic in ancient times was the "tear of the poppy" (Papaveris lacrima), now known as opium. This was taken in the form of pills and often mixed with wine to enhance the effect. Opium was also used as part of ointments, as a kind of local anesthetic.

Perfumes were known as effective remedies. It was proved that
- inhaled nutmeg, thuja and lemon oil can relieve coughing.
- Spruce needle and rosemary oil have a stimulating effect as a bath additive,
- Lavender blossom, hops, bitter orange or linden oil relaxing and sleep-inducing.

Mineral remedies were also available to the Roman doctor. He used toxins to combat bacterial inflammation of the wounds - he kept alum, sulfur, verdigris and lead oxide in vials.

Whether the glass presented here once contained rose oil, with which a beautiful Roman woman refreshed her face? Or ink, with which a doctor brought his recipes to papyrus? Or verdigris? The iridescent surface indicates a longer stay in the earth. Irrigation is a consequence of weathering, NO "Roman" color effect.

Antique medicine

Votive figures

Terracotta, 2nd century AD, locality Naples Region



The medicine of the Romans was not very powerful. All the more important, therefore, was the help that gods could give to the sick. Votive offerings are consecration gifts with the help of which one tried - and still tries to make gods gracious. The most varied materials were used: clay, terra cotta, bronze, wrought iron, silver, brass sheet, wax.

Already in the Hallstatt time one knew victim figures. Very numerous are the finds from Etruscan times. In cult wells, especially near thermal springs and sources of large rivers (such as Tiber), they were found by the thousands.

From the Mediterranean region, the replicas of the diseased body parts come - so-called "identification gifts": In many cases one finds a toad as a toad, in the ancient world the symbol for the uterus.especially common are tablets depicting eyes, bites, hearts, arms and legs, phalluses, breasts, infants, vulvae. The objects reflect a lack of knowledge of the anatomical conditions - it is believed that the Etruscan manufacturers were mostly animal organs of sheep and cattle as models. In addition to terracotta, which represent individual body parts, there are whole-body representations, all objects mostly of poor quality.


Votive figures were extremely common at the time of the Roman Republic (4th-1 st century BC) to disappear without replacement - the reasons for the sudden decline of this form of the cult are unclear.


The two 8 cm high Roman votive figures presented here come from the region of Naples, where they were found in a veritable votive offering factory by the thousands. Apparently these Roman manufactures (2nd century AD) are on the one hand a pregnant woman (on the right), on the other hand they are a simple, nonspecific female figure who could be used polyvalently for a wide variety of gynecological problems ...