Aelius Promotus

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Aelius Promotus (Gr. Αίλιος Προμωτος) was an ancient physician of Alexandria,[1] of whose personal history no particulars are known, and whose date is uncertain. He is supposed by Villoison to have lived after the time of Pompey the Great,[2] that is, in the 1st century BC. By others he is considered to be much more ancient; yet other scholars place him as late as the second half of the 1st century AD. He is most probably the same person who is quoted by Galen simply by the name of Aelius.[3] He wrote several Greek medical works, which are still to be found in manuscript in different libraries in Europe, but as of the late 19th century none of these have ever been published. Some extracts from one of his works titled Δυναμερόν[4] (Latin Medicinalium Formularum Collectio), are inserted by C. G. Kühn in one of his works,[5] and also by Bona.[6] Two other of his works are quoted or mentioned by Hieronymus Mercurialis.[7] And also by Schneider in his prefaces to Nicander's Theriaca,[8] and Alexipharmaca.[9]

[edit] References

  1. ^ Greenhill, William Alexander (1867), “Aelius Promotus”, in Smith, William, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, vol. 1, Boston, pp. 29 
  2. ^ Jean-Baptiste Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison, Anecd. Graec. vol. ii. p. 179. note 1
  3. ^ Galen, De Compos. Medicam. secund. Locos. iv. 7, vol. xii. p. 730
  4. ^ Δυναμερόν is a word used by the later Greek writers, and is explained by Du Cange (Gloss. Med. et Infim. Graecit.) to mean vis, virtus. It is how­ever frequently used in the sense given to it in the text.
  5. ^ Kühn, Additam. ad Elench. Med. Vet. a J.A. Fabricio in "Bibl. Gr." Exhib.
  6. ^ Bona, Tractatus de Scorbuto, Verona, 1781
  7. ^ Hieronymus Mercurialis, Variae Lectiones, iii. 4; De Venenis et Morbis Venenosis, i. 16, ii. 2
  8. ^ p. xi
  9. ^ p. xix

This article incorporates text from the public domain Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology by William Smith (1870).