IATRALIPTA
IATRALIPTA or
IATRALIPTES (
Ἰατραλειπτής), a sort of specialist physician, who in the
treatment of disease almost confined himself to the use of friction and
anointing (
ἰατραλειπτική,
Plin. Nat. 29.2). According to Pliny (
l.c.) the first person who brought this mode of
practice especially into notice was Prodicus (or
Herodicus)
in the fifth century B.C. The iatralipta was a superior person to the mere
alipta [see the word]; Harpocras, who is called by this title by the younger
Pliny (
Plin. Ep. 10.45), obtained from the
Emperor Trajan the freedom of the cities of Rome and Alexandria. The word
occurs in some editions of Celsus (
de Medic. 1.1), but the
better reading is
alipta. It is found also in
Galen (
de Compos. Medicam. sec. Locos, 7.5, ton. xiii. p.
104) and Paulus Aegineta (
de Re Med. 3.47).
[
W.A.G]