De Materia Medica by Pedianos Dioscorides
A Brief Biography
Little is known about the life of Pedanios
Dioscorides, despite the enormous impact he had on medicine in
Europe and the Near East for hundreds of years. What little is known
about him comes primarily from his own works, as there are very few
other mentions of him.
Dioscorides is believed to
have been born in approximately 40 AD, in the town of Anazarbus
in Cilicia. This area today is found in southern Turkey. He studied
medicine under Areios at Tarsus. Later he became a physician in the
Roman army during the period of rule of the Roman emperors Nero, Caligula,
and Claudius.
In approximately 60 AD, Dioscorides
wrote a series of books known primarily by their Latin title, De
materia medica. The five volume set became the best known and most
widely respected medicinal guide. Some versions contains 6-8 books
(only the first five are provided on this website). De materia medica
was particularly notable for arranging the agents in order in large
part based on their activity as opposed to alphabetic order or arrangement
by morphology. Though not unprecedented, Dioscorides's manuals were
among the best works that used this organization. The works also
stayed largely out of theoretical models of causes of disease, particularly
ignoring the widespread theory of humors. Instead, Dioscorides based
what he wrote on his personal experiences as a physician and upon
those of other practitioners he respected. The result was a practical
manual that became adopted as a central medical reference for over
1500 years.
De materia medica was translated
into many languages including Arabic, Syriac, Persian, and Latin.
Before the advent of printing, all copies had to be prepared by hand.
As a result, there were almost inevitably errors made by scribes,
possibly worsened by incorrect editing of the text by well-meaning by
misinformed scholars and physicians. Ultimately, other scholars checked
their copies against older ones and eliminated these errors. Others
actually journeyed to the Middle East where they were able to confirm
the identities of several plants in confusion.
De Materia Medica
Middle English Translation by John Goodyer (drawings removed), 1655 A.D.
A modern English translation will be posted as time permits.
Screen friendly formats: if viewed at 100% with Adobe Reader, each screen
is very readable.
Introduction
Introduction by Dioscorides (printer friendly pdf, 60 KB)
Introduction (screen friendly pdf, 100 KB)
Book I
Section 1, Aromatics
(printer friendly pdf, 124 KB)
Section 1, Aromatics
(screen friendly pdf, 96 KB)
Section 2, Oils (printer
friendly pdf, 60 KB)
Section 2, Oils (screen
friendly pdf, 52 KB)
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