The Pneumatic school of medicine (Pneumatics, or Pneumatici, Greek: Πνευματικοί) was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. They were founded in Rome by Athenaeus of Cilicia, in the 1st century AD.The Roman era was a time when the Methodic school had enjoyed its greatest reputation, from which the Pneumatic school differed principally in that, instead of the mixture of primitive atoms, they adopted an active principle of immaterial nature, pneuma, or spirit.