ABSTRACT
Aulus Cornelius Celsus (circa 25 BC–circa 50 AD) was a Roman writer and encyclopaedist. His great work was De Medicina which described medicine, pharmacy and surgery in the Roman world. He may not actually have been a practicing physician at all but rather a writer on a range of topics from medicine to military matters. He made major contributions to the specialty of dermatology – the disease kerion celsi still bears his name. Celsus was the first to describe something which every medical student would still recognise – the features of inflammation. In Celsus’s terms these were rubor, calor, dolor and tumor (redness, heat, pain and swelling respectively). The fifth feature ‘loss of function’ was added later.
