Pedanius Dioscorides

Pedanius Dioscorides (, ; 40–90 AD), "the father of pharmacognosy", was a Greek pharmacologist, physician, botanist, and author of (in the original , , both meaning "On Medical Material"), 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.

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. (The dedication, translated by Scarborough and Nutton, 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".) Though he writes he lived a "soldier's life" or "soldier-like life", his pharmacopeia refers almost solely to plants found in the Greek-speaking eastern Mediterranean, making it likely that he served in campaigns, or travelled in a civilian capacity, less widely than supposed.

De materia medica

Between 50 and 70 AD Dioscorides wrote a five-volume book in his native Greek, (Perì hylēs íatrikēs), known in Western Europe more often by its Latin title ("On Medical Material"), which became the precursor to all modern pharmacopeias.

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.

In the medieval period, was circulated in Greek, as well as Latin and Arabic translation. thumb Cover of an early printed version of , Lyon, 1554While 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' , entitled : , has been used by scholars to identify many of the flora mentioned by Dioscorides.

A number of illustrated manuscripts of 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.

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, Thracian, 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, 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", while some of the botanical identifications of Dioscorides' plants remain merely guesses.

John Goodyer translated the work into English in 1655, and bequeathed it to Magdalen College, Oxford; it was published by the Oxford University Press in 1934.

Legacy

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".

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