Musa, Antonius

, an eminent physician at Rome, acquired such reputation as to be appointed physician to the emperor Augustus, about 21 B. C. He is said to have been the first who prescribed the use of the cold bath; but whatever may be in this, he advised cold bathing and a cool regimen in the case of his imperial master, which effected the cure of many disorders with which Augustus had been previously afflicted, and made him a great favourite both with the emperor and the people. Little is Known of his history besides, and none of his writings have descended to posterity. The tract, printed among others on the materia medica at Basil in 1528 and 1549, “Libellus de Botanica,” and attributed to Musa, is thought to have been the production of a later pen. Bishop Atterbury, in a letter to Dr. Freind, endeavours to prove that the lapis mentioned by Virgil (Eneid XII. 391) was our Musa; but Dr. Templeman and others have differed from him in this opinion, for reasons which cannot easily be rejected. ²