Materia medica

Last updated

Page from the 6th-century Vienna Dioscurides, an illuminated version of the 1st-century De Materia Medica ViennaDioscoridesPlant.jpg
Page from the 6th-century Vienna Dioscurides , an illuminated version of the 1st-century De Materia Medica

Materia medica (lit.: 'medical material/substance') is a Latin term from the history of pharmacy for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing (i.e., medications). The term derives from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica , 'On medical material' (Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς, Peri hylēs iatrikēs, in Greek).

Contents

The term materia medica was used from the period of the Roman Empire until the 20th century, [1] but has now been generally replaced in medical education contexts by the term pharmacology. The term survives in the title of the British Medical Journal 's "Materia Non Medica" column.

Ancient civilizations

Ancient Egypt

The earliest known writing about medicine was a 110-page Egyptian papyrus. It was supposedly written by the god Thoth in about 16 BC. The Ebers papyrus is an ancient recipe book dated to approximately 1552 BC. It contains a mixture of magic and medicine with invocations to banish disease and a catalogue of useful plants, minerals, magic amulets and spells. [2] The most famous Egyptian physician was Imhotep, who lived in Memphis around 2500 B.C. Imhotep's materia medica consisted of procedures for treating head and torso injuries, tending of wounds, and prevention and curing of infections, as well as advanced principles of hygiene.

Ancient India

In India, the Ayurveda is traditional medicine that emphasizes plant-based treatments, hygiene, and balance in the body's state of being. Indian materia medica included knowledge of plants, where they grow in all season, methods for storage and shelf life of harvested materials. It also included directions for making juice from vegetables, dried powders from herb, cold infusions and extracts. [3]

Ancient China

The earliest Chinese manual of materia medica, the Shennong Bencao Jing (Shennong Emperor's Classic of Materia Medica), was compiled in the 1st century AD during the Han dynasty, attributed to the mythical Shennong. It lists some 365 medicines, of which 252 are herbs. Earlier literature included lists of prescriptions for specific ailments, exemplified by the Recipes for Fifty-Two Ailments found in the Mawangdui tomb, which was sealed in 168 BC. Succeeding generations augmented the Shennong Bencao Jing, as in the Yaoxing Lun (Treatise on the Nature of Medicinal Herbs), a 7th-century Tang dynasty treatise on herbal medicine.

Ancient Greece

Hippocrates

In Greece, Hippocrates (born 460 BC) was a philosopher later known as the Father of Medicine. He founded a school of medicine that focused on treating the causes of disease rather than its symptoms. Disease was dictated by natural laws and therefore could be treated through close observation of symptoms. His treatises, Aphorisms and Prognostics, discuss 265 drugs, the importance of diet and external treatments for diseases. [3]

Theophrastus

Theophrastus (390–280 BC) was a disciple of Aristotle and a philosopher of natural history, considered by historians as the Father of Botany. He wrote a treatise entitled Historia Plantarium about 300 BC. It was the first attempt to organize and classify plants, plant lore, and botanical morphology in Greece. It provided physicians with a rough taxonomy of plants and details of medicinal herbs and herbal concoctions. [4]

Galen

Galen was a philosopher, physician, pharmacist and prolific medical writer. He compiled an extensive record of the medical knowledge of his day and added his own observations. He wrote on the structure of organs, but not their uses; the pulse and its association with respiration; the arteries and the movement of blood; and the uses of theriacs. "In treatises such as On Theriac to Piso, On Theriac to Pamphilius, and On Antidotes, Galen identified theriac as a sixty-four-ingredient compound, able to cure any ill known". [5] His work was rediscovered in the 15th century and became the authority on medicine and healing for the next two centuries. His medicine was based on the regulation of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) and their properties (wet, dry, hot, and cold). [6]

Dioscorides's De materia medica

Dioscorides, De materia medica, Byzantium, 15th century. Dioscorides De Materia Medica Byzantium 15th century.jpg
Dioscorides, De materia medica , Byzantium, 15th century.
Dioscorides De materia medica in Arabic, Spain, 12th-13th century Dioscorides De Materia Medica Spain 12th 13th century.jpg
Dioscorides De materia medica in Arabic, Spain, 12th-13th century

The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides, of Anazarbus in Asia Minor, wrote a five-volume treatise concerning medical matters, entitled Περὶ ὕλης ἰατρικῆς in Greek or De materia medica in Latin. This famous commentary covered about 600 plants along with therapeutically useful animal and mineral products. It documented the effects of drugs made from these substances on patients. De materia medica was the first extensive pharmacopeia, including about a thousand natural product drugs (mostly plant-based), 4,740 medicinal usages for drugs, and 360 medical properties (such as antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, stimulant). The book was heavily translated, and portrayed some of the emblematic actions of physicians and herbalists. One such page is Physician Preparing an Elixir .

Dioscorides' plant descriptions use an elementary classification, though he cannot be said to have used botanical taxonomy. Book one describes the uses for aromatic oils, salves and ointments, trees and shrubs, and fleshy fruits, even if not aromatic. Book two included uses for animals, parts of animals, animal products, cereals, leguminous, malvaceous, cruciferous, and other garden herbs. Book three detailed the properties of roots, juices, herbs and seeds used for food or medicine. Book four continued to describe the uses for roots and herbs, specifically narcotic and poisonous medicinal plants. Book five dealt with the medicinal uses for wine and metallic ores. [7] [8] It is a precursor to all modern pharmacopeias, and is considered one of the most influential herbal books in history. It remained in use until about 1600 AD. [9]

Medieval

Middle Eastern

Avicenna (980–1037 AD) was a Persian philosopher, physician, and Islamic scholar. He wrote about 40 books on medicine. His two most famous books are The Canon of Medicine and The Book of Healing , used in medieval universities as medical textbooks. He did much to popularize the connection between Greek and Arabic medicine, translating works by Hippocrates, Aristotle and Galen into Arabic. Avicenna stressed the importance of diet, exercise, and hygiene. He also was the first to describe parasitic infection, to use urine for diagnostic purposes and discouraged physicians from the practice of surgery because it was too base and manual. [2]

European

In medieval Europe, medicinal herbs and plants were cultivated in monastery and nunnery gardens beginning about the 8th century. Charlemagne gave orders for the collection of medicinal plants to be grown systematically in his royal garden. This royal garden was an important precedent for botanical gardens and physic gardens that were established in the 16th century. It was also the beginning of the study of botany as a separate discipline. In about the 12th century, medicine and pharmacy began to be taught in universities. [4]

Shabbethai Ben Abraham, better known as Shabbethai Donnolo, (913–c.982) was a 10th-century Italian Jew and the author of an early Hebrew text, Antidotarium. It consisted of detailed drug descriptions, medicinal remedies, practical methods for preparing medicine from roots. It was a veritable glossary of herbs and drugs used during the medieval period. Donnollo was widely travelled and collected information from Arabic, Greek and Roman sources. [2]

In the Early and High Middle Ages Nestorian Christians were banished for their heretical views that they carried to Asia Minor. The Greek text was translated into Syriac when pagan Greek scholars fled east after Constantine’s conquest of Byzantium, Stephanos (son of Basilios, a Christian living in Baghdad under the Khalif Motawakki) made an Arabic translation of De Materia Medica from the Greek in 854. In 948 the Byzantine Emperor Romanus II, son and co-regent of Constantine Porphyrogenitos, sent a beautifully illustrated Greek manuscript of De materia medica to the Spanish Khalif, Abd-Arrahman III. In 1250, Syriac scholar Bar Hebraeus prepared an illustrated Syriac version, which was translated into Arabic. [7] [10] [11]

Early modern

Matthaeus Silvaticus, Avicenna, Galen, Dioscorides, Platearius and Serapio inspired the appearance of three main works printed in Mainz: In 1484 the Herbarius , the following year the Gart der Gesundheit , and in 1491 the Ortus Sanitatis . The works contain 16, 242 and 570 references to Dioscorides, respectively. [9]

The first appearance of Dioscorides as a printed book was a Latin translation printed at Colle, Italy by Johanemm Allemanun de Mdemblik in 1478. The Greek version appeared in 1499 by Manutius at Venice.

The most useful books of botany, pharmacy and medicine used by students and scholars were supplemented commentaries on Dioscorides, including the works of Fuchs, Anguillara, Mattioli, Maranta, Cesalpino, Dodoens, Fabius Columna, Gaspard and Johann Bauhin, and De Villanueva/Servetus. In several of these versions, the annotations and comments exceed the Dioscoridean text and have much new botany. Printers were not merely printing the authentic materia medica, but hiring experts on the medical and botanical field for criticism, commentaries, that would raise the stature of the printers and the work. [4]

Most of these authors copied each other, from previous works. It was normal to add previous commentaries and marginalia, to make the text look more enriched or thorough.

There were several De Materia Medica works noted as Anonymous A, B, C and D by the expert on Dioscorides-De Materia Medica professor John M. Riddle. The Anonymous A has to do with authors on translations of handwriting. Riddle proved Anonymous C to be Bruyerinus Champier. [4]

During the 16th century, the most representative among them were Ermolao Barbaro, Jean Ruel, Broyeurinus, Michel de Villeneuva, Pietro Andrea Mattioli, Andres Laguna, Marcello Virgilio, Martin Mathee and Valerius Cordus. [4] [7]

In 1789, William Cullen published his two volume A Treatise of the Materia Medica, which was highly valued by other medical practitioners throughout Europe.[ citation needed ]

Ermolao Barbaro

The work of the Italian physician and humanist Ermolao Barbaro was published in 1516, 23 years after his death. Poliziano wrote to Ermalao Barbaro, forwarding a manuscript of the 1st-century pharmacologist Pedanius Dioscorides, asking him to send it back "annotated by that very learned hand of yours, thus lending the volume additional value and authority." [12] Barbaro was professor of the University of Padua in 1477 and translated many texts from Greek to Latin. [13] He sought to avoid mistakes by gathering as many manuscripts as he could for checking the texts. He claimed to have corrected 5000 mistakes between two editions of Pliny the Elder's Naturalis historia, [14] a work he found very similar to Materia Medica, for which he used at least two editions as well.

The result of Barbaro's effort occupied no fewer than 58 pages printed in three columns of about 50 entries each. The work provides a key to over 9,000 items; all references were to pages. This was the first annotated Latin translation of Dioscorides' Materia Medica, and so Barbaro became the earliest of the Renaissance translators of Dioscorides, [13] [15] a practice that saw its golden age in the 16th century. Barbaro's work was later corrected by Giovanni-Battista.

Jean Ruel

Jean Ruel was the dean of the Faculty of Medicine and physician to King Francis I of France. He perfected the Latin translation of the Materia Medica directly from the "princeps" edition. He tried to develop a translation joining philology, botany and medicine. This work, printed in 1516 by Henri Estienne/Stephano, became very popular, having 20 editions during the 16th century. He published editions until 1537, printed by Simon de Colines. [4] [7]

From this point, Latin was the preferred language for presenting De Materia Medica, and Ruel's editions became the basis from which many other important authors would start to create their own Materia Medica. Ruel was also teacher of two great De Materia Medica authors: Michel de Villeneuve and Andres Laguna. [7] [16]

Bruyerinus

Bruyerinus Champier was the nephew of Symphorien Champier, and physician of Henry II of France. He was an Arabist, and translated works of Avicena. [17] In 1550 he published his first Materia Medica, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet in Lyons. This work had a second edition in 1552 printed by Arnoullet in Lyon and Vienne. Both works were illustrated with figures by Fuchs, but in this last edition there were also 30 woodcuts by the botanist and physician Jacob Dalechamp. [4] [18] It seems that the reason that he used his initials, H.B.P., and not his full name in the work; it could be that he practically transcribed commentaries of Mattioli. [4] [19] [ clarification needed ]

Michael Servetus

According to Spanish scholar González Echeverría [20] in several communications in the ISHM, [21] [22] [23] the John M. Riddle Anonymous B (De Materia Medica of 1543) would be Michael Servetus, and that the Anonymous D (De Materia Medica of 1554 of Mattioli plus non-signed commentaries) is two commentarians, Servetus and Mattioi, being the last one hired for editing the " Lyons printers' Tribute to Michel de Villeneuve" [24] edition. Michael Servetus, using the name "Michel de Villeneuve", who already had his first death sentence from the University of Paris, anonymously published a Dioscorides-De Materia Medica in 1543, printed by Jean & Francois Frellon in Lyon. [25] It has 277 marginalia and 20 commentaries on a De Materia Medica of Jean Ruel. [25] According to Gonzalez Echeverría, to be associated to an anonymous Pharmacopeia that "Michel de Villeneuve" published the same year, meant to be a single unit, [23] which is typical when it comes to De Materia Medica-Pharmacopeia. This work had six later editions, in 1546 and 1547 by Jean Frellon, who considered Michael de Villeneuve "his friend and brother", another in 1547 by Thibaut Payen, etc. [25] [26]

One of the four covers (Arnoullet) of the "Lyons printers' tribute edition to Michel de Villeneuve" edition of the Materia Medica. By Michel de Villeneuve & Pietro Andrea Mattioli, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet in 1554, in Lyons. 1554Arnoullet.jpg
One of the four covers (Arnoullet) of the " Lyons printers' tribute edition to Michel de Villeneuve" edition of the Materia Medica. By Michel de Villeneuve & Pietro Andrea Mattioli, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet in 1554, in Lyons.

There is another Materia Medica with commentaries [21] on a Ruel edition of 1537, printed by Simon de Colines. This work contains hundreds of manuscript marginaia, all along 420 out of 480 pages. The scholar Gonzalez Echeverria demonstrated in the ISHM [21] with a graphological, historical and linguistic study that this task was carried out by Michel de Villeneuve. It also demonstrated that this document was written by the same hand that wrote the famous [26] "Manuscript of Paris", a work also by Michel de Villeneuve, consisting of a draft for his Christianismo Restitutio. "The manuscript of the Complutense" is not just a union of the ideas of the previous works by Michel de Villeneuve, Syropum Ratio, etc., but also of the later works, Enquiridion, [23] De Materia Medica of 1543, [25] sharing with this last many of its 20 big commentaries, for instance. [26]

According to this theory, in 1554, [21] after the immolation of Michael de Villeneuve/Servetus, the editors and printers that had worked with him would have decided to make a new De Materia Medica as a tribute to their colleague and friend. [21] All the commentaries that could identify Michel de Villeneuve as the author disappeared, [26] but the rest are copied from his work of 1543. It is a very strange edition because there exist four different kinds of copies with different covers, one per editor: Jean Frellon, Guillaume Rouillé, Antoine Vicent and Balthazar Arnoullet, who was also the printer of this unique edition, in Lyons. [21] For developing a bigger work and to blur the mark of Michel de Villeneuve, they hired the expert on De Materia Medica, Pietro Andrea Mattioli. [26]

Pietro Andrea Mattioli

Pietro Andrea Mattioli was a renowned botanist and physician. He published a translation of De Materia Medica [27] into Italian in 1544 and ten years later published a work in Latin with all the plants of Dioscorides and 562 woodcut illustrations. [7] It appeared in 1554, printed by Vicenzo Valgrisi, in Venice. Mattioli made a massive contribution to the original text of Pedani's Dioscorides. [27] In some sections Mattioli added information that exceeded 15 times the length of the original text. It resulted in a very big extension of the work, in beauty and information. It was later translated into German, French and Bohemian. [7]

Mattioli held a post in the Imperial Court as physician to Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria, [27] and the Emperor Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor. [7] This position granted him an immense influence. He frequently tested the effects of poisonous plants on prisoners in order to popularize his works. [4] He also affirmed that Jean Ruel had declared some information in the lycopsis chapter of his Materia Medica. This is false, but still Mattioli used it as a reason for attacking Ruel. [7] He did not tolerate either rivals nor corrections. The naturalists and physicians daring to disagree with him, or who had corrected him, were attacked. The list of important characters that were admonished, rebuked, or pursued by the Inquisition contains Wieland, Anguillara, Gesner, Lusitanus and others. This made editions of Matioli's De Materia Medica omnipresent throughout the continent, especially in northern Europe. [27]

Andres Laguna

In 1554 the physician Andres Laguna published his Annotations on Dioscorides of Anazarbus [28] printed by Guillaume Rouillé in Lyons. Laguna was the first to translate De Materia Medica into Castilian. [28] His translation was made from one of the Latin editions of Jean Ruel. It was also based on classes Laguna took from Ruel as his pupil in Paris. Laguna points out some of his teacher's erroneous translations, and adds many commentaries, which make up more than half of the total work.

Laguna explored [28] many Mediterranean areas and obtained results concerning many new herbs; he also added these prescriptions and commentaries to the recipes and teachings of Pedanius' Dioscorides. He also includes some animal and mineral products but only those related to simple medicines, that is, animal and mineral products that are medicine or are parts of a medical compound. [29] This was not an illustrated work. In 1555 he re-edited this work with woodcuts. [28] It was reprinted twenty-two times by the end of the 18th century; Laguna wrote very well, with explanations and practical commentaries. [29] He refers to anecdotes, adds commentaries on the plants, provides their synonyms in different languages, and explains their uses in the 16th century. These qualities and the number of woodcuts made this work very popular and appreciated in medicine far beyond the 16th century. He had problems with Mattioli for using some of his commentaries without mentioning him. [29]

Laguna had problems with the Inquisition, just like Michel de Villeneuve, for both were jewish-converso, [30] a fact that could have made them limit their commentaries to avoid risks. Nevertheless, he was the physician of Charles V and the Pope Julius III, [28] and that helped to establish his work as the last word in Materia Medica, and as the basis of Spanish botany. [31]

Valerius Cordus

The physician Valerius Cordus, son of the famous botanist Euricius Cordus, went through many woods and mountains discovering hundreds of new herbs. [32] He gave lectures on Dioscorides at the University of Wittenberg, which experts from the university attended. Cordus had no intention of publishing his work. Five years after his death, a Materia Medica with commentaries was published. [33] It contained the index of the Botanologicon, the outstanding work of his father Euricius, who developed a scientific classification of the plants. The following pages are on Gesner's Nomenclature, [34] relating the different synonyms used for referring to the same plants of the Dioscorides work.

The abstracts of the lectures of Valerius Cordus go from page 449 to 553 as commentaries. This section consisted of a very refined explanation of Dioscorides' teachings with more specifics on the variety of plants [35] and habitats, and corrections of errors. Cordus refers to both his and his father's observations. Eucharius Rösslin's herbal [36] illustrations are prominent in this work, followed by 200 of Fuchs. This work and the model of botanical description and, many consider it the boldest innovation that was made by any botanist of the 16th century. [37]

Martin Mathee

The French physician Martin Mathee published in 1553 the French translation of De Materia Medica, printed by Balthazar Arnoullet, in Lyons. This granted much more access for the students of medicine to the teachings. [4]

The Greek version was reprinted in 1518, 1523 and 1529, and reprinted in 1518, 1523 and 1529. Between 1555 and 1752 there were at least 12 Spanish editions; and as many in Italian from 1542. French editions appeared from 1553; and German editions from 1546. [7]

"Materia non medica"

The ancient phrase survives in modified form in the British Medical Journal 's long-established "Materia Non Medica" column, the title indicating non-medical material that doctors wished to report from their travels and other experiences. For example, in June 1977, the journal contained "Materia Non Medica" reports on an exhibition at the Whitechapel Art Gallery by a London physician, the making of matches by hand in an Indian village by a missionary general practitioner, and a cruise to Jamaica by a University of the West Indies lecturer in medicine. [38]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michael Servetus</span> 16th-century Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer and Renaissance humanist

Michael Servetus was a Spanish theologian, physician, cartographer, and Renaissance humanist. He was the first European to correctly describe the function of pulmonary circulation, as discussed in Christianismi Restitutio (1553). He was a polymath versed in many sciences: mathematics, astronomy and meteorology, geography, human anatomy, medicine and pharmacology, as well as jurisprudence, translation, poetry, and the scholarly study of the Bible in its original languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pedanius Dioscorides</span> Greco-Roman physician and pharmacologist, prominent writer on plant drugs (AD c.40–90)

Pedanius Dioscorides, "the father of pharmacognosy", was a Greek physician, pharmacologist, botanist, and author of De materia medica, a 5-volume Greek encyclopedic pharmacopeia on herbal medicine and related medicinal substances, that was widely read for more than 1,500 years. For almost two millennia Dioscorides was regarded as the most prominent writer on plants and plant drugs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pharmacopoeia</span> Book containing directions for the identification of compound medicines

A pharmacopoeia, pharmacopeia, or pharmacopoea, in its modern technical sense, is a book containing directions for the identification of compound medicines, and published by the authority of a government or a medical or pharmaceutical society.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbal</span> Book containing the names and descriptions of plants

A herbal is a book containing the names and descriptions of plants, usually with information on their medicinal, tonic, culinary, toxic, hallucinatory, aromatic, or magical powers, and the legends associated with them. A herbal may also classify the plants it describes, may give recipes for herbal extracts, tinctures, or potions, and sometimes include mineral and animal medicaments in addition to those obtained from plants. Herbals were often illustrated to assist plant identification.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rembert Dodoens</span> Flemish physician and botanist (1517–1585)

Rembert Dodoens was a Flemish physician and botanist, also known under his Latinized name Rembertus Dodonaeus. He has been called the father of botany. The standard author abbreviation Dodoens is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.

<i>Distichs of Cato</i>

The Distichs of Cato is a Latin collection of proverbial wisdom and morality by an unknown author from the 3rd or 4th century AD. The Cato was the most popular medieval schoolbook for teaching Latin, prized not only as a Latin textbook, but as a moral compass. Cato was in common use as a Latin teaching aid as late as the 18th century, used by Benjamin Franklin. It was one of the best-known books in the Middle Ages and was translated into many languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pietro Andrea Mattioli</span> Italian scientist

Pietro Andrea Gregorio Mattioli was a doctor and naturalist born in Siena. His most important work was a commentary on the medicinal plants of Dioscorides first published in 1544 which was translated into several languages and went into thirteen editions in his lifetime.

Corderius was a French-born theologian, teacher, humanist, and pedagogian active in Geneva, Republic of Geneva. He taught at the School of Lausanne, where he was a director.

Li Shizhen, courtesy name Dongbi, was a Chinese acupuncturist, herbalist, naturalist, pharmacologist, physician, and writer of the Ming dynasty. He is the author of a 27-year work, the Compendium of Materia Medica. He developed several methods for classifying herb components and medications for treating diseases.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Naples Dioscurides</span> 7th-century illuminated manuscript Greek herbal

The Naples Dioscurides, in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples, is an early 7th-century secular illuminated manuscript Greek herbal. The book has 172 folios and a page size of 29.7 x 14 cm and the text is a redaction of De Materia Medica by the 1st century Greek military physician Dioscorides, with descriptions of plants and their medicinal uses. Unlike De Materia Medica, the text is arranged alphabetically by plant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ibn al-Baytar</span> Andalusian Arab pharmacist, botanist, physician and scientist (1197–1248)

Diyāʾ al-Dīn Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allāh ibn Aḥmad al-Mālaqī, commonly known as Ibn al-Bayṭār was an Andalusian Arab physician, botanist, pharmacist and scientist. His main contribution was to systematically record the additions made by Islamic physicians in the Middle Ages, which added between 300 and 400 types of medicine to the one thousand previously known since antiquity. He was a student of Abu al-Abbas al-Nabati.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrés Laguna</span>

Andrés Laguna de Segovia (1499–1559) was a Spanish humanist physician, pharmacologist, and botanist.

John Marion Riddle is an American historian and specialist in the history of medicine. He is Alumni Distinguished Professor emeritus of History at North Carolina State University.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guillaume Rouillé</span> French humanist bookseller-printer (c.1504–1589)

Guillaume Rouillé, also called Roville or Rovillius, was one of the most prominent humanist bookseller-printers in 16th-century Lyon. He invented the pocket book format called the sextodecimo, printed with sixteen leaves to the folio sheet, half the size of the octavo format, and published many works of history and poetry as well as medicine, in addition to his useful compilations and handbooks.

The year 1544 in science and technology involved some significant events.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jean Ruel</span> French physician and botanist

Jean Ruel, also known as Jean Ruelle or Ioannes Ruellius in its Latinised form, was a French physician and botanist noted for the 1536 publication in Paris of De Natura Stirpium, a Renaissance treatise on botany.

The Baghdad School, also known as the Arab school, was a relatively short-lived yet influential school of Islamic art developed during the late 12th century in the capital Baghdad of the ruling Abbasid Caliphate. The movement had largely died out by the early 14th century, five decades following the invasion of the Mongols in 1258 and the downfall of the Abbasids' rule, and would eventually be replaced by stylistic movements from the Mongol tradition. The Baghdad School is particularly noted for its distinctive approach to manuscript illustration. The faces depicted in illustrations were individualized and expressive, with the scenes often highlighting realistic features of everyday life from the period. This stylistic movement used strong, bright colors, and employed a balanced sense of design and a decorative quality, with illustrations often lacking traditional frames and appearing between lines of text on manuscript pages.

<i>Physician Preparing an Elixir</i>

The Physician Preparing an Elixir is a miniature on a folio from an illustrated manuscript copy, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York of De Materia Medica, a large herbal or work on the (mostly) medical uses of plants originally written by the ancient Greco-Roman physician, Pedanius Dioscorides, in the first century AD. This page of the manuscript, dated 1224 AD, is made from paper, sized 24.8 cm wide and 33.2 cm long, and is decorated by opaque watercolor, ink, and gold detailing. It is visually split into three horizontal portions from the top of the page to the bottom; the top of the page is dominated by two lines of Arabic script, followed by the image and then five more lines of text in Arabic. The writing below the image is predominantly black with the exception of one line, which is written in red ink and is therefore highlighted to the viewer. The page is usually not on display.

The history of herbalism is closely tied with the history of medicine from prehistoric times up until the development of the germ theory of disease in the 19th century. Modern medicine from the 19th century to today has been based on evidence gathered using the scientific method. Evidence-based use of pharmaceutical drugs, often derived from medicinal plants, has largely replaced herbal treatments in modern health care. However, many people continue to employ various forms of traditional or alternative medicine. These systems often have a significant herbal component. The history of herbalism also overlaps with food history, as many of the herbs and spices historically used by humans to season food yield useful medicinal compounds, and use of spices with antimicrobial activity in cooking is part of an ancient response to the threat of food-borne pathogens.

<i>De materia medica</i> 1st century pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants and medicines by Pedanius Dioscorides

De materia medica is a pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants and the medicines that can be obtained from them. The five-volume work was written between 50 and 70 CE by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the Roman army. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted by revised herbals in the Renaissance, making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history and pharmacology books.

References

  1. Textbook of Materia Medica, A.S. Blumgarten 1933
  2. 1 2 3 Le Wall, Charles. The Curious Lore of Drugs and Medicines: Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy. (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co. Inc: 1927)
  3. 1 2 Parker, Linette A. "A Brief History of Materia Medica," in The American Journal of Nursing, Vol.15, No. 8 (May 1915). pp 650-653.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Le Wall, Charles. The Curious Lore of Drugs and Medicines: Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy. (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co. Inc: 1927) and Riddle, John M.Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine. (Austin: University of Texas Press,1985)
  5. Findlen, Paula. Possessing Nature: Museums, Collecting, and Early Scientific Culture in Early Modern Italy. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, & London: University of California Press, 1994): 241.
  6. Le Wall, Charles. The Curious Lore of Drugs and Medicines: Four Thousand Years of Pharmacy. (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Co. Inc: 1927) and Parker, Linette A. "A Brief History of Materia Medica," in The American Journal of Nursing, Vol.15, No. 9 (June 1915). pp 729-734.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Osbaldeston, Tess Anne Dioscorides(Ibidis Press,2000)
  8. Collins, Minta. Medieval Herbals: The Illustrative Traditions. (London: The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 2000): 32.
  9. 1 2 Parker, Linette A. "A Brief History of Materia Medica," in The American Journal of Nursing, Vol.15, No. 9 (June 1915). pp 729-734 and Riddle, John M. Dioscorides on pharmacy and medicine. (Austin: University of Texas Press,1985)
  10. Karlikata, E.: Dioscorides ve Materia Medica(Kitab'ül Hasayis). Olusum yil 7 Sayi 28 (1999) 50.
  11. Sonneddecker, G. Kremers and Urdang's history of Pharmacy, 3rd edition, Lippincott Company, America 1963 p.15)
  12. ‘[A]d me remittes ... pretium volumini aliquod ex te atque auctoritas accedat.’ Poliziano, Letters I.xi:
  13. 1 2 Branca 1973, Reeds 1976
  14. (2003 Frank N. Egerton Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America, A History of the Ecological Sciences
  15. Richard Palmer Medical botany in northern Italy in the Renaissance Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine Volume 78 February 1985
  16. Universal Illustrated American Encyclopedia
  17. Singer, Charles Joseph. 'The herbal in antiquity and its transmission to later ages', in Journal of Hellenic Studies, vol 47, 1927, pp1-52 & 10 col plates.
  18. Riddle, John M. 'The latin alphabetical Dioscorides', in Proceedings of XIIIth international congress of the history of science, Moscow, August 18–24, 1971, Nauka, Moscow 1974, sec 4
  19. Riddle, John M. (1980). "Dioscorides" (PDF). Catalogus Translationum et Commentariorum . 4: 82, 92. Retrieved 28 August 2015.
  20. Michael Servetus Research Archived 13 November 2012 at the Wayback Machine website with graphicl study of the medical works by Servetus
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 6 2011 September 9th, Francisco González Echeverría VI International Meeting for the History of Medicine,(S-11: Biographies in History of Medicine (I)), Barcelona. New Discoveries on the biography of Michael De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus) & New discoverys on the work of Michael De Villeneuve (Michael Servetus)
  22. 1996 "Sesma's Dioscorides or Medical Matter: an unknown work of Michael Servetus (I)" and " Sesma's Dioscorides or Medical Matter: an unknown work of Michael Servetus (II)" González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. In : Book of Abstracts. 35th International Congress on the History of Medicine, 2nd-8th, September, 1996, Kos Island, Greece, communications nº: 6 y 7, p. 4.
  23. 1 2 3 1998 "The book of work of Michael Servetus for his Dioscorides and his Dispensarium"(Le livre de travail de Michel Servet pour ses Dioscorides et Dispensarium) and "The Dispensarium or Enquiridion, complementary of the Dioscorides of Michael Servetus" ( The Enquiridion, L’oeuvre Le Dispensarium ou Enquiridion complémentaire sur le Dioscorides de Michel Servet) González Echeverría, in : Book of summaries, 36th International Congress on the History of Medicine, Tunis (Livre des Résumés, 36 ème Congrès International d’ Histoire de la médicine, Tunis), 6th - 11th Septembre 1998, (two comunicacions), pp. 199 y 210.
  24. 1 2 Term coined by Gonzalez Echeverria
  25. 1 2 3 4 1997 "Michael Servetus, editor of the Dioscorides", González Echeverría, Francisco Javier. Institute of Sijenienses Studies "Michael Servetus" ed, Villanueva de Sijena, Larrosa ed and "Ibercaja", Zaragoza.
  26. 1 2 3 4 5 2011 "The love for truth. Life and work of Michael Servetus", (El amor a la verdad. Vida y obra de Miguel Servet.), printed by Navarro y Navarro, Zaragoza, collaboration with the Government of Navarra, Department of Institutional Relations and Education of the Government of Navarra, 607 pp, 64 of them illustrations.
  27. 1 2 3 4 Genaust, Helmut (1976). Etymologisches Wörterbuch der botanischen Pflanzennamen
  28. 1 2 3 4 5 De la Pena, A (January 1963). "Two great physicians of the sixteenth century. (Andres LAGUNA)". The Journal of the International College of Surgeons
  29. 1 2 3 2002 Rebeca Orihuela Salcho, Aljamia vol 14 University of Oviedo
  30. Immanuel Jakobovits, Jewish Medical Ethics: A Comparative and Historical Study of the Jewish Religious Attitude to Medicine and its Practice, 2nd ex. ed. (w:st="on"New York: Bloch, 1975; orig. 1959)
  31. Aron Gurevich, Medieval Popular Culture: Problems of Belief and Perception, trans. János M. Bak and Paul A. Hollingsworth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 1997
  32. DURLING, Richard J.-A catalogue of Sixteenth Century Printed Books in the National Library of medicine., Bethesda, MD, US Dept. of Health, NLM, 16thc.1967.
  33. Greene, Edward Lee, Landmarks of Botanical Science
  34. Hans H. Wellisch Conrad Gessner: A Bio-bibliography, 2nd revised and enlarged edition. Zug, Switzerland: Inter Documentation Company, 1984
  35. Nissen, Claus. Herbals of five centuries, L’Art Ancien, Zurich, Robert Wolfe, Munich and Weiss-Hesse, Olten, 1958
  36. Theodor Husemann (1876) (in German). "Cordus, Valerius". In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
  37. Nissen, Claus. Die botanische buchillustration, ihre geschichte und bibliographie, A Hiersemann, Stuttgart, 2 vols, 1951, Supplement, 1966.
  38. "Materia Non Medica". BMJ. 1 (6077): 1657. 25 June 1977. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.6077.1657. S2CID   220196463.