The medical practices of the Romans involved the use of wine in a similar manner. In his 1st-century work De Medicina, the Roman encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus detailed a long list of Greek and Roman wines used for medicinal purposes. While treating gladiators in Asia Minor, the Roman physician Galen would use wine as a disinfectant for all types of wounds, and even soaked exposed bowels before returning them to the body. During his four years with the gladiators, only five deaths occurred, compared to sixty deaths under the watch of the physician before him.
