During Roman Antiquity, the entire Empire was a medical desert. The entire? No! Some doctors, trained in medical schools, practiced their art, especially in Rome and in large cities. But the competition with a less rational approach to medicine was fierce…We examined what factors may have influenced medical demographics at the time and what the consequences may have been for the population.We used texts from ancient authors and epigraphic evidence.First, Roman prejudices about Greek rational medicine persisted long after its introduction to Rome and a more traditional, ancestral medicine, under the direction of the pater familias, remained the norm for a long time, at least among the upper classes. Even several centuries later, most practitioners were Greeks. The presence of doctors, sometimes highly specialized, was greater in cities, particularly in Rome, so much so that Cicero (1st century BC) lamented the fragmentation of the art of medicine into parts. On several occasions, some wealthy cities tried to attract doctors with advantageous policies: salary, various tax exemptions… But these advantages were strictly controlled with a veritable “numerus clausus” of public positions. Conversely, rural areas were less "well-equipped", although the itinerant doctor, traveling from town to town, was the norm in antiquity. Thus, Glaucon took care to ask his friend, the famous Galen (2nd AD), to write him a book about treatment of fevers and tumors when he had to leave Rome.So, despite Galen's virulent attacks against those whom we would call "charlatans" today, who used magical methods, it must be acknowledged that many patients probably did not have a wide choice among those considered capable of providing them with relief from their illness, and even less so among doctors trained in rational medicine. Moreover, even among the latter, some representatives of the Methodist school, the most important one at the beginning of the Empire, believed that medicine could not be provided individually due to a lack of doctors.Medical demography, despite its current relevance, is a subject older than our contemporary era. Even in Roman antiquity, it forced both patients and doctors to change their practices.