Lichens are included in the classification system of fungi and have been used in medicine, pharmacy and industry from antiquity to present day in the treatment of various diseases. In this study, Peri Hyles Iatrikes of Dioscorides has been investigated and evaluated from lichenological point of view. It is found that, Dioscorides mentions about medical properties and uses of probable Parmelia species such as P. saxatilis (L.) Ach or P. sulcata Taylor.

This article discusses the text of the work On Simples attributed to Dioscorides. It argues that in fifteen places the transmitted text is faulty, and it proposes emendations. It also studies certain types of insertions made in the text by its most recent editor, Max Wellmann, and concludes that they are unnecessary. Finally, it discusses two points where On Simples sheds light on Dioscorides’ De materia medica.

It is commonly thought that Dioscorides’s view on medicine is purely pragmatic, focused entirely on the effectiveness of medicines, and derived from trial and error. One reason for this interpretation is that Dioscorides himself wrote little about his theory of medicine. In this article, however, we argue that he would have arranged De Materia Medica in a way that would have been useful only to a skilled practitioner. This argument implies that Dioscorides had a medical theory, as the arrangement of (...) the content could not have followed a trial-and-error approach. It is only in the sense of having a theory that he is able to claim that his text is more “complete” than others. This article provides a historical overview of the text from its genesis to its reception and, ultimately, to its falling out of use. This article concludes with a series of hypotheses on the correspondence between theory and arrangement of the treatise, with the aim of narrowing scholarly conjectures about both. In the final analysis, we argue that an arrangement by family resemblance most closely corresponds to the theory that animates Dioscorides’s text. (shrink)

Nel Corpus Galenicum sono molte le citazioni del nome di Dioscoride e della sua opera, il De materia medica, talvolta con minime differenze nel contenuto o con commenti eruditi di Galeno. Oltre a queste riprese più esplicite, ci sono anche alcuni passaggi degli scritti galenici che potrebbero avere come fonte il De materia medica. Questo anche sulla base di alcuni n-grams che ricorrono in entrambi gli autori, l’uno source text e l’altro target text. Esaminando le citazioni più o meno esplicite (...) dell’opera dioscoridea in Galeno, questo contributo si propone di mostrare l’influenza de il buono accoglitor del quale negli scritti del medico di Pergamo e il suo rapporto con il modello dioscorideo. (shrink)

Se aborda en este trabajo el estudio de un precioso manuscrito de la Biblioteca Nacional de París, el n.º 2849 de los fondos árabes. Se trata de un manuscrito de origen andalusí que contiene la traducción al árabe de la Materia Medica de Dioscórides, escrito en Siria a principios del siglo XIII, cuyos márgenes están repletos de glosas de naturaleza sinonímica, relativas a los nombres griegos que reciben las plantas descritas por la farmacología griega. Estas glosas son de orígen (...) andalusí, y ofrecen una gran riqueza terminológica que se inscribe en un amplio movimiento árabe, y más concretamente andalusí, de revisión y comentario de la traducción árabe de la Materia Medica. En la primera parte de este estudio se ofrece una presentación general del manuscrito, mostrando su valor para una reedición crítica de la obra, de las glosas que contiene y particularmente de las glosas botánicas andalusíes, insistiendo en su valor sinonímico y su contribución terminológica. En la segunda parte, el autor propone una edición crítica anotada de 44 glosas extraídas de la primera maqala de la obra. (shrink)

In this study, after a short introductory information on the etymology, origin, and transition of botanical knowledge in Medieval Islamic Civilisation, we made a comparison of illustrated botanical works in Maghreb and Masriq through two illustrated books. We studied on randomly selected illustrations from Kitab al- Hashaish at-Tibb li-Diskuridus al-Aynzarbi translated by Istefan ibn Basil & Hunayn ibn Ishaq from Dioscorides’ Materia Medica, and Kitab al-Adwiyat al-Mufradat of Abu Ja’far Ahmad al-Ghafiqi, the Andalusian physician, pharmacist, and herbalist. We made comparisons (...) on the illustrations of nine plants and one lichen, chosen from Codex Osler of al-Ghafiqi, and Codices Ayasofya of Istefan-Hunayn, with real photos of plants and lichen, via the methods used currently in the science-art of botanical illustration. With this «botanical illustrative method», we conclude that in the same century, the work of al-Ghafiqi has been copied in a more accurate way than that of Istefan-Hunayn translation. -/- تخصص هذه الدراسة - بعد تقديم معلومات تمهيدية موجزة عن علم أصل الكلمات، وأصول وتطور المعرفة النباتية في الحضارة الإسلامية في العصور الوسطى - للتحليل المقارن للمؤلفات في علم النبات المصور في المغرب والمشرق، من خلال كتابين مصورين. و لهذه الغاية، قمنا بتحليل سلسلة من الرسوم، إختيرت بشكل تلقائي، أُخذت من كتاب النباتات الطبية لصاحبه دِيُسوفُورِيدس، و من ترجمة ابن استيفان ابن باسل و حنين ابن إسحاق لدراسة المادة الطبية لديسوفوريدس، و من كتاب الأدوية البسيطة لأبو جعفر أحمد الغافقي، و هو طبيب و صيدلي و عشاب أندلسي. لقد أجرينا مقارنات لرسوم تسعة نباتات و أشنة وقع الإختيار عليها من كتاب أوسلر للغافقي و من كتب أياصوفيا لإستيفان و حنين، مع صور حقيقية لعينات من هذه الأنواع، باستخدام الطرق المطبقة في وقتنا الراهن في فن وعلم الرسوم النباتية. و بعد تطبيق هذا المنهج التصويري النباتي، نستطيع أن نخلص إلى أنه، و على الرغم من إنتاجها في نفس القرن، فإن نسخ رسوم الغافقي النباتية كانت أكثر دقة من تلك الموجودة في ترجمة استيفان - حنين. الكلمات المفتاحية دِيُسوفُورِيدس، الغافقي، تاريخ علم النبات، الأندلس -/- Este estudio –tras una breve información introductoria sobre etimología, orígenes y evolución del conocimiento botánico en la civilización islámica medieval– está dedicado a un análisis comparativo de los tratados botánicos ilustrados en el Magreb y en el Máshreq, a través de dos libros ilustrados. Para ello, hemos analizado una serie de ilustraciones, elegidas al azar, extraídas del Libro de plantas medicinales de Dioscórides por Anazarba, traducción de Istefan ibn Basil y Hunayn ibn Ishaq del tratado De materia medica de Dioscórides, y del Libro de los medicamentos simples de Abu Ya'far Ahmad al-Gafiqi, médico, farmacéutico y herbolario andalusí. Hemos llevado a cabo comparaciones de las ilustraciones de nueve plantas y un liquen, escogidos del códice Osler de al-Gafiqi y de los códices Ayasofya de Istefan-Hunayn, con fotografías reales de especímenes de dichas especies, acudiendo a los métodos aplicados actualmente en el arte y ciencia de la ilustración botánica. Tras este «método ilustrativo botánico», podemos concluir que, aunque llevadas a cabo en el mismo siglo, las copias de ilustraciones de al-Gafiqi han resultado más precisas que las de la traducción de Istefan-Hunayn. (shrink)

This article suggests a new reading for Oribasius’ Libri ad Eunapium 3.13.4. Based on evidence from both Greek and Syriac sources, it argues that the variant contained in Oribasius’ Synopsis ad Eustathium should be adopted as the correct reading of the original.

En la actualidad, aún se desconoce el verdadero alcance de la vasta cultura de Lope de Vega, pues, aunque se sabe que fue un gran lector, que legó más de 1500 libros, sus títulos se han perdido a lo largo de la historia. No obstante, en sus obras trasciende una serie de textos que contribuyeron a su formación. En el presente trabajo se analiza La Arcadia, considerada la novela pastoril más erudita del Siglo de Oro, desde la perspectiva de los (...) agentes terapéuticos. En esta obra se mencionan remedios de procedencia herbal, de procedencia mineral y también de procedencia animal. Los resultados confirman que Lope de Vega pudo utilizar una serie de textos científicos en sus citas sobre la materia terapéutica. Entre ellos cabe destacar a Andrés Laguna y su Dioscórides y Plinio el Viejo, cuya Historia Natural pudo haber consultado como fuente primaria, a través de alguna traducción comentada, como la de Gerónimo de Huerta o a través de alguna otra obra basada en ella, como el opúsculo de Constantino Castriota, pues, en este último caso, se encuentran párrafos muy similares y, en algunos casos, casi literales. Nowadays, the true extent of the vast culture of Lope de Vega is still largely unknown. Although it is known that he was a great reader, who bequeathed more than 1500 books, his titles have been lost throughout history. However, a series of texts that contributed to his education become known in his works. In the present paper, La Arcadia, considered the most erudite pastoral romance of Spanish Golden Age, is analyzed from the therapeutic perspective. Remedies of herbal origin, of mineral origin and also of animal origin are mentioned in this novel. The results achieved confirm that Lope de Vega was able to use a series of scientific texts in his quotations on the therapeutic subject. Among them, it is worth mentioning Andres Laguna, and Pliny the Elder, whose Natural History could have been consulted as a primary source, through some commented translation, such as that of Geronimo de Huerta, or through some other work based on it, like Constantino Castriota's opuscule. In the latter case, there are very similar and, in some cases, almost literal paragraphs. (shrink)

The epigram is remarkable for its metre as well as for the amount of erudition it displays. Thoenias of Sicyon was already known as a later representative of the school of Lysippus; that Dionysodorus was a fellow-citizen of his has not emerged so far, but he is mentioned by Polybius as an admiral and an emissary of Attalus. ‘Frisky’ is known to us from an epigram by Dioscorides, where he guards the tomb of Sositheus, and from a passage of Nonnus; (...) Cornutus, N.D. 30 classified Scirti along with Satyrs and Silens. But the poet remains unnamed: Dionysodorus, a military man, can hardly be credited with such a piece of refined Hellenistic versification. (shrink)

Active in Alexandria during the second half of the third century, Dioscorides is the author of some forty epigrams preserved in theAnthologia Palatina. Five of these epigrams are concerned with Greek playwrights: three dramatists of the archaic and classical periods, Thespis, Aeschylus and Sophocles, and two contemporary ones, Sositheus and Machon. Dioscorides conceived four epigrams as two pairs (Thespis and Aeschylus, Sophocles and Sositheus) clearly marked by verbal connections, and celebrates each playwright for his original contribution to the history of (...) Greek drama. Thespis boasts to have discovered tragedy; Aeschylus to have elevated it. The twin epigrams devoted to Sophocles and Sositheus present Sophocles as refining the satyrs and Sositheus as making them, once again, primitive. Finally, Machon is singled out for his comedies as ‘worthy remnants of ancient art (τέχνης … ἀρχαίης)’. Dioscorides’ miniature history of Greek drama, which is interesting both for its debts to the ancient tradition surrounding classical playwrights and for the light it sheds on contemporary drama, clearly smacks of archaizing sympathies. They drive Dioscorides’ selection of authors and his treatment of contemporary dramatists: both Sositheus and Machon are praised for consciously looking back to the masters of the past. My focus is on Sositheus and his ‘new’ satyr-play. After discussing the relationship that Dioscorides establishes between Sophocles’ and Sositheus’ satyrs, and reviewing scholarly interpretations of Sositheus’ innovations, I will argue that Dioscorides speaks the language of New Music. His epigram celebrates Sositheus as rejecting New Music and its trends, and as composing satyr plays that were musically old fashioned and therefore reactionary. (shrink)

Summary The enthusiasm of Renaissance humanists for classical learning greatly influenced the development of botany in the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Humanist scholars restored the treatises of Theophrastus, Pliny, Galen and Dioscorides on botany and materia medica to general circulation and argued for their use as textbooks in Renaissance universities. Renaissance botanists' respect for classical precepts and models of the proper methods for studying plants temporarily discouraged the use of naturalistic botanical illustration, but encouraged other techniques for collecting and (...) communicating new observations: herbaria, botanical gardens and field trips. (shrink)

This article examines the role of taste perception in Galen’s research on simple drugs in relation to the acquisition of knowledge. To this end, 1.) I make it plausible through an examination of sources that the sometimes increased, more detailed and divergent indications of taste compared to his predecessors, especially Dioscorides and Sextius Niger, are based on Galen’s own research, 2.) reconstruct Galen’s research practice and 3.) examine the presentation of his results in linguistic and logical terms and explain the (...) differences to traditional pharmacology. I argue that a) gustatory perception has a special significance in Galen’s work that goes far beyond its traditional descriptive function and b) that, starting from the realisation that taste and drug action are interrelated, he assigns to taste qualities an indicator function for a much more fundamental principle that causes drug action and thus c) has prepared the ground for a pharmacognosy that also classifies according to taste principles, which was to reach its climax much later. With a view to a practice of gustatory testing of herbal drugs that is still practised today in pharmacy, which, like any other natural science discipline, has otherwise largely lost the sensory reference to its subject matter, the article would therefore like to provide an encouragement to study the “history of pharmaceutical-medical tasting”. (shrink)

L’épigramme funéraire Anth. Pal. VII, 167, pour la jeune Polyxenè, est attribuée soit à Dioscoride, soit à un certain Hekataios de Thasos, inconnu par ailleurs. La défunte apparaît sur une inscription honorifique de l’agora de Thasos (C. Dunant, J. Pouillou x, Recherches sur Thasos II, 237) que l’on peut placer à l’époque d’Auguste environ. Le rapprochement des deux documents permet d’affirmer que le poète est bien Hekataios : il pourrait faire partie des auteurs réunis dans la Couronne de Philippe.

Summary The pharmacological tradition in the medieval Islamic world developed on the basis of the Greek tradition, with the works of Dioscorides and Galen being particularly popular. The terminology was influenced not only by Greek, but also Middle Persian, Syriac, and indigenous Arabic words. Through recent research into Graeco-Arabic translations, it has become possible to discern the evolution of pharmacological writing in Arabic: in the late eighth century, the technical terms were being developed, with transliterations being used; by the mid-ninth (...) century, many standard Arabic translations for Greek words have been established. Various authors, however, expanded the pharmacology inherited from the Greeks. Galen had established a system of degrees of primary faculties (dry or moist, and warm or cold) that various physicians in the Islamic world modified. Al-Kindī, for instance, invented a theory of how to calculate these degrees in compound drugs, whereas ar-Rāzī criticised the epistemology that underlies Galen's theories. Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) complemented the various degrees in his description of simple drugs. Furthermore, both Ibn Sarābiyun and al-Kaskarī integrated new drugs from the Islamic heartland, and the Far East into the Greek system. In these ways, the Arabic pharmacology developed in a creative tension of tradition and innovation. (shrink)

Summary The pharmacological tradition in the medieval Islamic world developed on the basis of the Greek tradition, with the works of Dioscorides and Galen being particularly popular. The terminology was influenced not only by Greek, but also Middle Persian, Syriac, and indigenous Arabic words. Through recent research into Graeco-Arabic translations, it has become possible to discern the evolution of pharmacological writing in Arabic: in the late eighth century, the technical terms were being developed, with transliterations being used; by the mid-ninth (...) century, many standard Arabic translations for Greek words have been established. Various authors, however, expanded the pharmacology inherited from the Greeks. Galen had established a system of degrees of primary faculties (dry or moist, and warm or cold) that various physicians in the Islamic world modified. Al-Kindī, for instance, invented a theory of how to calculate these degrees in compound drugs, whereas ar-Rāzī criticised the epistemology that underlies Galen's theories. Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) complemented the various degrees in his description of simple drugs. Furthermore, both Ibn Sarābiyun and al-Kaskarī integrated new drugs from the Islamic heartland, and the Far East into the Greek system. In these ways, the Arabic pharmacology developed in a creative tension of tradition and innovation. (shrink)

I DO not think that it is at all generally known that among the Egyptian antiquities given by Grant Bey to the Museum at Aberdeen there are a considerable number of papyrus fragments, Greek, Coptic,1 Hieratic, Demotic, and even Latin and Arabic, which except for an inspection by Prof. Sayce and a passing visit of Dr. Grenfell have up till now been left unexamined. That indeed is my only reason for trespassing in a branch of Palaeography with which I am (...) quite unfamiliar; and it is in the hope of inciting some experienced papyrologist to turn his attention to them that I publish the following fragments. In the case of the Greek fragments lack of time combined with a mistrust of my powers of deciphering the more illegible non-literary hands forbade me do more than select the most promising literary fragments. Among these Homer naturally predominates; but the gem of the collection is a lyric fragment, which may fairly certainly be ascribed to Alcaeus, though Dr. Grenfell who first noticed it attributed it to Sappho. A fragment of Demosthenes, a fragment of Dioscorides, and a vellum fragment of a Latin Bible, were the only others which I succeeded in identifying; but these, with the few tragic, comic, and medical fragments which I also reproduce, are, I think, first-fruits sufficient to show that the crop would not be barren, if it found a competent gleaner. (shrink)

There are spells in the Greek and Demotic Magical Papyri which promise divine visitations, assistants, ecstatic states, vessel inquiries, and vivid dreams. They also require powerful psychoactive botanical ingredients. How did these spells work and what were the expectations of somebody purchasing them? Looking at the ingredients of visionary spells and relying on the pharmacology of Dioscorides and Theophrastus, I ascertain how these spells achieved the promised visions and altered states of consciousness for the user. These spells guarantee great spiritual (...) and recreational entertainment to the client who would need an abundance of money to purchase the ingredients. (shrink)

Cleopatra VII, the last of the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt, reveled in perfume (Plutarch, Life of Marcus Antonius 26.2). She even used it in her seduction of the Roman general Marc Antony. Sailing up the river Cydnus to meet him, she reclined in a canopy spangled with gold, adorned like Venus in a painting. Boys dressed as cupids fanned her and wondrous scents from incense offerings wafted along the riverbanks. Not long after her death in August 30 BCE, a book (...) circulated under her name called Cleopatra’s Cosmetic, full of recipes for fragrant oils and cleansers (Totelin 2017: 114–18). (shrink)