Pedanius Dioscorides

Pedanius Dioscorides

Dioscorides receives a mandrake root, an illumination from the 6th century Greek Juliana Anicia Codex
Born c. 40 AD
Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor
Died c. 90 AD
Other names Dioscurides
Occupation Army physician, pharmacologist, botanist
Known for De Materia Medica

Pedanius Dioscorides (Ancient Greek: Πεδάνιος Διοσκουρίδης, Pedianos Dioskorides; c. 40 – 90 AD) was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of De Materia Medica (Ancient Greek: Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς) —a 5-volume Greek encyclopedia about herbal medicine and related medicinal substances (a pharmacopeia), that was widely read for more than 1,500 years. He was employed as a medic in the Roman army.

Life

A native of Anazarbus, Cilicia, Asia Minor, Dioscorides likely studied medicine nearby at the school in Tarsus, which had a pharmacological emphasis, and he dedicated his medical books to Laecanius Arius, a medical practitioner there.[lower-alpha 1][2][3] Though he says he served in the Roman army, his pharmacopeia refers almost solely to plants found in the Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean, making it unlikely that he served in campaigns (or traveled) outside that region.[4] The name Pedanius is Roman, suggesting that an aristocrat of that name sponsored him to become a Roman citizen.

De Materia Medica

Blackberry from the 6th-century Vienna Dioscurides manuscript

Between AD 50 and 70 [5] Dioscorides wrote a five-volume book in his native Greek, Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς, known in Western Europe more often by its Latin title De Materia Medica ("On Medical Material"), which became the precursor to all modern pharmacopeias.[6]

Cover of an early printed version of De Materia Medica, Lyon, 1554

In contrast to many classical authors, Dioscorides' works were not "rediscovered" in the Renaissance, because his book had never left circulation; indeed, with regard to Western materia medica through the early modern period, Dioscorides' text eclipsed the Hippocratic corpus.[7] In the medieval period, De Materia Medica was circulated in Greek, as well as Latin and Arabic translation.[8] While being reproduced in manuscript form through the centuries, it was often supplemented with commentary and minor additions from Arabic and Indian sources. Ibn al-Baitar's commentary on Dioscorides' Materia Medica, entitled “Tafsīr Kitāb Diāsqūrīdūs”, has been used by scholars to identify many of the flora mentioned by Dioscorides.[9] A number of illustrated manuscripts of De Materia Medica survive. The most famous of these is the lavishly illustrated Vienna Dioscurides, produced in Constantinople in 512/513 AD. Densely illustrated Arabic copies survive from the 12th and 13th centuries, while Greek manuscripts survive today in the monasteries of Mount Athos.[10]

De Materia Medica is the prime historical source of information about the medicines used by the Greeks, Romans, and other cultures of antiquity. The work also records the Dacian,[11] Thracian,[12] Roman, ancient Egyptian and North African (Carthaginian) names for some plants, which otherwise would have been lost. The work presents about 600 plants in all,[13] although the descriptions are sometimes obscurely phrased, leading to comments such as: "Numerous individuals from the Middle Ages on have struggled with the identity of the recondite kinds",[14] while some of the botanical identifications of Dioscorides' plants remain merely guesses.

De Materia Medica formed the core of the European pharmacopeia through the 19th century, suggesting that "the timelessness of Dioscorides' work resulted from an empirical tradition based on trial and error; that it worked for generation after generation despite social and cultural changes and changes in medical theory".[7]

The Dioscorea genus of plants, which includes the yam, was named after him by Linnaeus.

Images

Translations

In literature

In Voltaire's Candide, the title character's injuries received at the hands of the Bulgarian army, into which he had been conscripted, are healed using "emollients taught by Dioscorides."

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ The dedication, translated by Scarborough and Nutton,[1] began "At your insistence I have assembled my material into five books, and I dedicate my compendium to you in fulfilment of a debt of gratitude for your sentiments towards me".[2]

References

  1. ↑ Scarborough and Nutton, 1982
  2. 1 2 Stobart, Anne (2014). Critical Approaches to the History of Western Herbal Medicine: From Classical Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. A&C Black. p. 193. ISBN 978-1-4411-8418-4.
  3. ↑ Borzelleca, Joseph F.; Lane, Richard W. (2008). "The Art, the Science, and the Seduction of Toxicology: an Evolutionary Development". In Hayes, Andrew Wallace. Principles and methods of toxicology (5th ed.). Taylor & Francis. p. 13.
  4. ↑ Nutton, Vivian. Ancient medicine. Routledge, 2012. p. 178 "Dioscorides had studied pharmacology at Tarsus, the major city of his region, where there appears to have existed a strong tradition of pharmacological teaching that continued for at least a further fifty years. his references to specific habitats of plants or to major entrepôts are overwhelmingly concentrated on the Greek-speaking world of the Aegean and the Levant. The few mentions of places further afield, such as the Balearic Islands, India or Britain (for its mead), are more likely to derive from the reports of others than from his own travels. This distribution of named sites presents a problem for those who wish to interpret his reference, in his Preface, to having travelled a great deal in 'a soldierly life,' to indicate a period of military service. If, as he claimed, he had used his travels to observe native plants, he shows very little acquaintance with those from regions where the Roman army was mainly stationed, along the Rhine and Danube, in Spain or N. Africa. However, he may have served in Syria or, less likely, Egypt, or perhaps insisted for a short while in the Armenian wars of 55-63."
  5. ↑ "Greek Medicine". National Institutes of Health, USA. 16 September 2002. Retrieved 1 July 2013.
  6. ↑ Forbes, 2013
  7. 1 2 De Vos (2010) "European Materia Medica in Historical Texts: Longevity of a Tradition and Implications for Future Use", Journal of Ethnopharmacology 132(1):28–47
  8. ↑ Some detail about medieval manuscripts of De Materia Medica at pages xxix–xxxi in Introduction to Dioscorides Materia Medica by TA Osbaldeston, year 2000.
  9. ↑ Zohar Amar, Agricultural Produce in the Land of Israel in the Middle Ages (Hebrew title: גידולי ארץ-ישראל בימי הביניים), Ben-Zvi Institute: Jerusalem 2000, p. 270 ISBN 965-217-174-3 (Hebrew); Tafsīr Kitāb Diāsqūrīdūs - commentaire de la “Materia Medica” de Dioscoride de Abū Muḥammad ʻAbdallāh ibn Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Bayṭār de Malaga (ed. Ibrahim Ben Mrad), Beirut 1989 (Arabic title: تفسير كتاب دياسقوريدوس)
  10. ↑ Selin, Helaine (2008). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer. p. 1077.
  11. ↑ Nutton, Vivian (2004). Ancient Medicine. Routledge.. Page 177.
  12. ↑ Murray, J. (1884). The Academy. Alexander and Shephrard.. Page 68.
  13. ↑ Krebs, Robert E.; Krebs, Carolyn A. (2003). Groundbreaking Scientific Experiments, Inventions, and Discoveries of the Ancient World. Greenwood Publishing Group.. Pages 75–76.
  14. ↑ Isely, Duane (1994). One hundred and one botanists. Iowa State University Press.

Sources

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