Aulus Cornelius Celsus, Roman encyclopaedist who lived in the first centuries BC and AD. He gathered together the learning of the Greeks and published it in eight books. All that has survived is the volume on medicine, based on the writings of the school of Hippocrates, discovered in 1426 and published in 1478. Celsus described many operations, including tonsillectomy, and described heart attacks, insanity and cataracts for the first time. Lithograph from 'Galerie medicale' (1825-1829), a collection of portraits by Pierre Roch Vigneron (1789-1872).