Dioscorides: De Materia Medica

by Pedanius Dioscorides, Tess Anne Osbaldeston (Editor)

Leather Binding on Spine and Corners with Golden Leaf Printing on round Spine (extra customization on request like complete leather, Golden Screen printing in Front, Color Leather, Colored book etc.) Reprinted in 2019 with the help of original edition published long back [1547]. This book is printed in black & white, sewing binding for longer life, Printed on high quality Paper, re-sized as per Current standards, professionally processed without changing its contents. As these are old books, we processed each page manually and make them readable but in some cases some pages which are blur or missing or black spots. We expect that you will understand our compulsion in these books. We found this book important for the readers who want to know more about our old treasure so we brought it back to the shelves. Hope you will like it and give your comments and suggestions. - Italian, - , Pages 640 . COMPLETE LEATHER WILL COST YOU EXTRA US$ 25 APART FROM THE LEATHER BOUND BOOKS. Complete Dioscoride Anazarbeo della materia medicinale 1547 [Leather Bound] Dioscorides Pedanius, of Anazarbos

Genres: Medicine, History, Nonfiction

913 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 60

About the author

Pedanius Dioscorides, (born c. AD 40, Anazarbus, Cilicia—died c. 90), Greek physician and pharmacologist whose work De materia medica was the foremost classical source of modern botanical terminology and the leading pharmacological text for 16 centuries.

Dioscorides’ travels as a surgeon with the armies of the Roman emperor Nero provided him an opportunity to study the features, distribution, and medicinal properties of many plants and minerals. Excellent descriptions of nearly 600 plants, including cannabis, colchicum, water hemlock, and peppermint, are contained in De materia medica. Written in five books around the year 77, this work deals with approximately 1,000 simple drugs.

Reviews

[Michael Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ann Tess Osbaldeston's book is an excellent English translation of the highly influential De Materia Medica by ancient learned physician Pedianus Dioscorides. Written likely in 77CE, if so then also likely at age 37, this is a collection of medical sources and their recommended uses, focusing primarily on plants. This translation of nearly 2,000 years later provides not only a readable text, but also an excellent introduction to the awesome history of De Materia Medica--one that traverses dominant empires from Roman to Arabic to Western civilization, survives Europe's Dark Ages, adds and contributes to the art of illumination and illustration, and underpins modern botanical science at least until Linnaeus.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about the history of science; if you want to look at the pictures, check Andres de Laguna's 1555 colored manuscript Pedacio Dioscorides Anazarbeo Acerca de la materia medicinal y de los venenos mortiferos [... por el Doctor Andres de Laguna, Medico de Julio III Pont Max.] (in Spanish, available freely as high-quality digital scan, courtesy of Biblioteca Nacional de Espana) or Jean Ruel's 1552 manuscript Pedanii Dioscoridis Anazarbei, De medicinali materia libri sex (in Latin, available freely as high-quality digital scan, courtesy of the Biodiversity Heritage Library).

Reading this book is not coincidental, although I did find it while reading the excellent visual review of botanical illustrations Plant: Exploring the Botanical World. Pursuing this finding, I got to know that, alongside Pliny the Elder's encyclopedia of all knowledge Natural History and Theophrastus' investigation of plants Enquiry into Plants (Historia Plantaria in the early translation of Theodoros Gazis, who coincidentally appears in my mathematical genealogy), De Materia Medica would be one of the three books named as defining almost 2,000 years of botanical and medicinal knowledge by Linnaeus. In Tess Anne Osbaldeston's interpretation, which evolves from a longer thread of critical analysis of this work, De Materia Medica is merely the collection of existing knowledge and combination with an applied physician's experience to emphasize use; its contribution in terms of knowledge seems to the author to be merely the coverage of about 25% more plants than the predecessor. In the eyes of posterity, however, it is perhaps exactly the focus on use and on simplified presentation that made De Materia Medica get reprinted repeatedly and become a standard textbook for Arabic and European physicians over the centuries. (Historia Naturalis and Enquiry into Plants also survived, but the latter, which is the closest to this book, seemingly with less acclaim by practitioners. The former seems to also include much more myth and information that seems unverified even for the date when it was written.)

The book itself includes, next to entire set of books I-V by Dioscorides, the translated original dedication by Dioscorides, an biography of Dioscorides, an analysis of the teachings included in books I-V and their relationship with the existing body of knowledge, a chronology of manuscripts relating to herbal knowledge that spans nearly 6,500 years (from Sumerian tablets of 5,000BCE to just before 1,500CE) and names such as Hyppocrates and Galen, a chronology of printed books that starts at late incunabulae and ends with the author's own edition in year 2,000CE, a trace of how the book was received by the world over the period of nearly 2,000 years since its inception (hint: with both professional awe and scientific reverence, and professional enmity and scientific disdain), an analysis of the illustrations of the many later editions that includes the 6th century Codex Vindobonensis to various modern herbals, a chronological (selective?) list of over 350 books translating or directly based on De Materia Medica (e.g., books published as commentary to De Materia Medica), a list of key locations in Dioscorides' world, and nearly 100 pages of indexes (e.g., an index names and alternates for the plants, an index of all illustrations, an index of latinised Greek names, an index of medicinal uses, an index of materials and of poisonous materials).

A few comments on the actual content:

First, of course, warns the author in the preface, the book by Dioscoride cannot be taken today as a primary source for treatment. Following a couple of paradigmatic revolutions in biology, the Linnean taxonomy-nomenclature and the charge of genetics-based methods after Mendel, (not to mention more in medicine), the book is now in part obsolete or even outright dangerous in its recommendations. However, its history parallels a chronicle of the entire field of human activity we now call science.

Second, the original dedication reads as a modern scientific introduction. We see context and problem statement--the great need to understand systematically all medicines, and in particular the plants they are made of---, the fiery rebuttal of closely related previous work but praise to historical trend of study in the field, the proposal of a new method and the boasting of superior results also due to the uniqueness and expertise of the investigator, and claim of full resolution of the problem. The method itself, of studying objects in their natural context, taking into account various important variables such as location, weather, and ecosystem conditions, remains valid even today.

Third, numerous modern studies assess the scientific and practical importance of Dioscorides' work. Hair-splitters may claim his was not a full taxonomy, merely a shallow classification devoid of deeper principle and philosophically incomplete, but the reality is that it has provided one of the first systematic approaches to understanding how the world of botany can become useful for medical applications. For example, Dioscorides' use of the term anesthesia was re-used only in the 19th century, and some of the compounds he recommended for hygiene, pain control, and birth control seem in use again today. Studying 25% more plants (around 600, used in nearly 1,000 medical recipes, in comparison with the under 500 studied until him), is also a major achievement, although for many this is merely being an apothecary. However, in my view, most scientists today would be happy achieving even a small fraction of this, and it is a fact that numerous scientists have received Nobel or equivalent prizes for (dis)covering just a single chemical compound or applied phenomenon.

Fourth, there is much practical relevance, even today. The practice of preparing cosmetics and medication in the same factories and using the same processes seems to remains active. An important part of the process here remains falsification, substitution, or plain spoiling of the products, and processes addressing these remain important. Dioscorides' contribution to this area should also not be disregarded.

Fifth and last, the list could go on and on. This is simply an amazing book of early science and practice, written about 2,000 years ago.

[Joshua (ithildins) · Rating 4 out of 5]

So much information. From different names, both scientific and common, to the various ways the people of the world used to treat ailments and conditions. This is an invaluable resource to anyone who wants to do some research into plants, animals, and minerals for historical or fantastical worlds.

[Gordon Goodwin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obviously an incredibly important book in historical botany, I've always wondered what the research process actually looked like for these Roman encyclopedias.