The use of minerals, plants and burnt materials in ancient medicine: Approaches to working recipes in John the Physician's Therapeutics from late 13th century Cyprus

Animals have been used as a source of human medicine for millennia. In the Mediterranean, these ancient practices were documented in historic texts such as Dioscoride’s De Materia Medica (40–90 A.D.) and continue to be documented even in current day ethnobiological surveys. Here, we summarize a few recent ethnobiological literature on Southern European zootherapy and compare these “modern” traditional medical applications of animals and their byproducts with those ancient practices documented >2,000 years ago. In doing so, we reflect on the continuity between ancient and modern medicine and examine the implications that such practices hold for both animal conservation and drug discovery.

In ancient history, the most prominent writer on plant drugs was Dioscorides, “the father of pharmacognosy”. Between about 50-70 A.D. he wrote his fundamental work “De Materia Medica.” It was destined to be one of the most famous books on pharmacology and medicine but is also rich in horticulture and plant ecology. This classical work of ancient medicine, translated many times, offers plenty of data on the medical plants constituting the basic materia medica until the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The famous illustrated Greek recensions reorganized the information alphabetically: the Juliana Anicia Codex completed in 512 and the Codex Neapolitanus considered to be late 6th or early 7th century, and Morgan 652 produced between 927 and 985. „De Materia Medica” played a key role in the development of Tacuinum Sanitatis, which was written Ibn Buṭlān in the 11. century. These two books have had a great impact on Ms. 459 (Biblioteca Casanatense).

American Journal of BotanyVolume 43, Issue 10 p. 862-869 Article BOTANY AND MEDICINE H. W. Youngken Jr., H. W. Youngken Jr.New address: Dean and Professor of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island.Search for more papers by this author H. W. Youngken Jr., H. W. Youngken Jr.New address: Dean and Professor of Pharmacognosy, College of Pharmacy, University of Rhode Island, Kingston, Rhode Island.Search for more papers by this author First published: 01 December 1956 https://doi.org/10.1002/j.1537-2197.1956.tb11179.xCitations: 1 AboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume43, Issue10December 1956Pages 862-869 RelatedInformation

This volume contains revised and extended versions of twenty-six papers presented at the 9th International Colloquium on Ancient Latin Medical Texts, ‘Language and Context in Latin Medical Texts of the Pre-Salernitan Period’, held at the University of Manchester in 2007. While originally the speakers presented their papers in alphabetical order, a thematic arrangement was deemed more appropriate for the purposes of publication, and this comprises three sections: Graeco-Roman Medicine, Medical Language and Sociolinguistics; Texts, Transmission and Reception; and Words, Meanings and Lexical Fields. There is, perhaps inevitably, a significant amount of overlap with regard to the contents of these three sections, and among the individual papers themselves. This is not necessarily a flaw, however, as these papers generally serve to complement rather than contradict each other, several of them having grown out of collaborative research projects between scholars and institutions. The first section, Graeco-Roman Medicine, Medical Language and Sociolinguistics, contains seven papers that approach aspects of both medical and non-medical works: H. von Staden examines the presentation of parts of the body and the body as a whole in Celsus’ De medicina; F. Le Blay the presentation of the pores in the writings of Lucretius and Seneca; B. Maire the interactions of medical, social and cultural discourse in Mustio’s Gynaecia; M. Baldin the medical terminology used by Plautus, Sallust and Juvenal; and D. Crismani the treatment of lovesickness in Apuleis’ Metamorphoses. More generally, G. Marasco argues that, far from being ignorant and intent on reproducing works of the past, physicians were undertaking research and formulating new theories that would later prove crucial during the Middle Ages. The second section, Texts, Transmission and Reception, contains eleven papers, and it is here that a number of significant new discoveries are presented for the first time: S. Sconocchia publishes four excerpts from the antidotos hiera Pacchi Antiochi; M. Cronier offers some new fragments of one of the three surviving ancient translations of Dioscorides’ De materia medica; A. F. Rodriguez puts forward a fragment of De uirtute uini and a chapter on herba peonia from Thessalus of Tralles’ De plantiis; and A. G. Gonzalez presents the Agriocanna glossary as an addition to the Hermeneumata medicobotanica uetustiora. The third section, Words, Meanings and Lexical Fields, contains eight papers that focus on certain aspects of the medical and non-medical terminology utilised in medical texts, from the names of specific diseases and conditions (digestion, haemorrhois) to the concepts of love (amo and amor) and childhood (puer/puella and infans), to the physical processes by which medicinal remedies were prepared (pounding, pulping and grinding). M. Pardon-Labonnelie incorporates both Latin medical texts and the words inscribed upon collyrium stamps in her discussion of the names of eye diseases, while P. Gaillard-Seux examines the possible contextual reasons for Pliny the Elder’s apparent preoccupation with bites and poisonous substances. Befitting an international colloquium, contributions are written in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish. There are some inconsistencies in the way that they are presented. Some papers include detailed abstracts, others single sentences; some provide abstracts in both English and another language; in the majority of cases the abstracts are in a different language to the paper itself, and the choice of the language of the abstract in relation to the language of the paper is not standardised. Several variations on the Harvard System are utilised for referencing, and quotations from ancient sources are offered in Latin, Greek, English and other languages, or not at all, depending on the paper in question. There is only one illustration (a colour reproduction of MS. Bodley 130, an image that is also reproduced on the cover of the volume), but there are tables throughout. The volume does offer extensive indices (of ancient sources, and Greek and Latin words, forms and phrases) and an exhaustive general bibliography, collated from the bibliographies included in all twenty-six papers and divided into sections: catalogues of manuscripts; editions of ancient and medieval texts (since AD 1700 and before AD 1700); dictionaries, grammars and concordances; and studies for ease of use. Ultimately, Body, Disease and Treatment in a Changing World is a valuable resource for scholars of ancient and medieval medicine.

It has always been thought that we are just plain old human beings being composed of mere human eukaryotic cells and occasionally attacked by viruses and bacteria. But this vision is plainly wrong. We now know that we are a coherent mix of all kinds of life, running from unicellular microorganisms to pluricellular organisms, which form part and parcel of what can be called human being. We are “holobionts” and as such the multiplicity of cells and viruses belonging to all kingdoms of life collaborate in an equilibrium that if perturbed can cause disease. The ancient medicines (including Western Constitutional Medicine [WCM]) adopted this way of thinking and the ancient observers sagely imprinted their medicinal systems with this holistic view of life for which disease has to be contrasted with a return to equilibrium. And the ancient medicines used as primary tool the correction of the diet seen as the restoration of the equilibrium between the energies (microorganisms) in the body. More recently a new medicinal system the ABO groups has taken a stronger stand in the scientific arena through the experimental confirmation of its main mechanism of action by glycosciences (especially glycobiology). Necessarily, bacteria, fungi and other unicellular organisms can feed off on glycans which are both produced and absorbed by the human body (diet) and the suitable balance of diet will interfere in this cycle. It is now the time to capture all these advances in ancient and modern medicine and fuse them into a new medicinal system, the ABO-WCM biotypology, to better explain the reality of the holobiont and to completely transform modern science into a truly personalized approach.

HE present paper represents an attempt to delineate the key patterns of Mestizo popular medicine and to analyze their implications for the reception accorded modern medicine by examining the nature and degree of acculturation to the latter that has already occurred. In working with professional personneldoctors, nurses, and health educators-engaged in action programs of public health in Peru and Chile, the writer encountered a pervasive preconception that the task of educating local populations in the concepts and practices of modern medicine is largely a matter of filling a mental vacuum, of providing information for the uninformed. There seems to be little awareness on their part that the need for emotional adjustment and cognitive orientation to the anxiety-arousing situations produced by such frustrating experiences as disease and death has characteristically led to the development and elaboration in all known societies of beliefs and practices for coping with these uncertainties. Popular medical beliefs and practices are ordinarily deeply rooted in the basic assumptions of a culture and provide more or less complete explanations of illness and of the appropriate means for dealing with it. Consequently, any serious attempt at converting so-called under-developed peoples to modern health practices will require not only some knowledge of their popular medicine but an assessment of its most receptive and resistant points with regard to modern medicine.

The overview provides information about places of natural habitat, Botanical description, chemical composition, information about the use of pharmaceuticals, medicinal plants of representatives Iris L.In official and folk medicine uses the leaves, rhizomes and roots of Iris lactea Pall., Iris pseudacorus L., Iris germanica L., Iris florentina L., Iris pallida Lam., Iris sibirica L., Iris setosa Pall., Iris ensata Tnunb. in the form of fees, medical and cosmetic products. On the basis of comprehensive studies of medicinal plants of Iris lactea, held in Saint-Petersburg chemical-pharmaceutical Academy, created and tested unique drugs preventive action "Viton" and "Latter". NGO "VILAR" currently available "Alpizarin" (FS 42-2843 - 92). Received a patent for inventions where the use of callus culture I. sibirica, as an alternative method of obtaining medicinal plant materials to produce essential oil. The proposed method enhances the quality of essential oil, a significant increase in the output of iron, reducing the cost of the resulting product, the possibility of continuous cultivation of tissues regardless of environmental conditions, the expansion of the resource base. Survey data will serve as a basis for further study of the mineral composition of physiologically active substances, pharmacological effectiveness data Iris L. and development of biotechnology receipt of a new kind of medicinal plant resources of the Russian Federation, as a source of creating therapeutic and prophylactic drugs in modern medicine.

This research analyses the persistence and adaptation of Humoural ideas, from Hippocratic medicine to the early modern period of 1500-1800, culminating in the comparison of it with modern medicine. From each time period, drawing on primary sources and using thematic analysis set within a historical framework, the research investigates how physicians engaged with new discoveries and adapted Humoural concepts into their practice. The English translations of key texts of Greek medicine, like the Corpus Hippocraticum and De Materia Medica, are interpreted for the constitution of Humoural theory. English translations of early modern sources, such as De Fabrica Corporis Humani and Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis in animilibus, are analyzed in respect to their suggestions regarding the manner by which anatomical and physiological discoveries challenged and possibly reshaped the concepts of the humours. Secondary literature with valuable insights on the practical use, adaptations, and eventual decline of the theory will also be considered. According to the findings of the research, despite the appearance of new medical knowledge, Humoural ideas persisted, and the physicians of early modernity adapted the theory for new discoveries by the reinterpretation of functions and coexisting with emerging diagnostic methods. The flaws in Humoural theory, however, became more obvious as the concept of disease etiology changed. Although the residue of its influence may persist in contemporary medical terminology, Humoural theory ultimately yielded to more scientifically based theories of health and disease. Thus, the persistence of Humoural theory emphasizes that even with new knowledge, firmly held traditional medical theories are difficult to dismiss. The integration of the two provided a nuanced perspective of disease and cure ultimately. It also proves the vitality of the role of physicians, inventions of medical field and leading medical movements in reshaping the existing medical practices.

Progress in any scientific discipline depends on development of a language of inquiry: a vital linguistic requirement for the proper and unambiguous communication among scientists in their search for knowledge.1 Observed phenomena, experimental results, notions, and technical terms can be clearly formulated, discussed, and debated but require a structure of precise and stable language. A study of Medicine in the Classical Age (fifth century B.C.) indicates that the linguistic requirement in the development of a discipline of inquiry was not merely theoretical but a practical necessity. Essential to the advancement of science, including medicine, in the Greek world was that rival schools of physicians made conflicting claims regarding diseases, treatments, and the nature of medicine itself, supporting these claims using rhetorical schemes in oral or written form.1–3 This unprecedented assembling of rational and systematic debates was marked by a transition from orality to the development of prose writing and set the stage for transforming medicine from traditional practice to a scientific discourse.4,5 Particular examples of disease led to general questions about sickness and health; questions seeking answers.2,4 These linguistic requirements bred the new language for the science (episteme) of medicine. The Hippocratic Canon depicts the background underlying the systematic debate over medicine.6,7 It is the oldest collection of scientific and philosophical literature and thus provides a detailed view of Greek thought in its early stages. In the Canon, doctrines from different medical schools compete and occasionally conflict with each other, revealing an inconsistency of substance and style,6 acting to strengthen rather than weaken the value of the collection. Although the historical Hippocrates was not solely responsible for this upheaval, several of the texts acknowledged as genuine8,9 show that Hippocrates provided the momentum for this gradual paradigm shift10 from theoretical and religious accounts of philosophy and superstition to the evidence-based model of modern medicine.7,11,12 In this issue of Anesthesia & Analgesia, Astyrakaki et al.13 provide a wealth of information about the Classical Age origin, etymology, and use of concepts defining theory and practice in our specialty. Among others, notions and terms such as anesthesia (αναισθησια) and pain (πονοσ—ponos) are frequently encountered in the Hippocratic Canon and, either directly or through intimation, influence their modern usage by present day clinicians and scientists. Hippocrates used the term anesthesia to denote loss of sensation as a result of disease or injury.13 In Breaths, the author* also associates seizure-induced loss of consciousness with insensibility to painful stimuli.14 Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician living in Rome during the first century A.D., is recorded as the first person who, in his De Materia Medica,15 makes explicit reference to the administration of mandrake-induced anesthesia to facilitate a surgical intervention. Oliver Wendell Holmes, a Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Dartmouth College, is credited with “coining” anesthesia in a letter to William Morton on November 21, 1846.16 In this letter, Holmes states: “The state should, I think, be called ‘anesthesia.’ This signifies insensibility, more particularly (as used by Linnaeus and Cullen) to objects of touch.”16,17 It is acknowledged that William Cullen (1710–1790), a Scottish physician and chemist, explains anesthesia in his Nosology18 as the “impaired or lost sense of touch,” whereas the stance of Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778), a Swedish naturalist, physician, and father of modern taxonomy, is less clear and comes only from indirect sources.19 Both Cullen and Linnaeus, as well as Francois de Sauvages (1706–1767) in France,20 supported definitions for the concept of anesthesia that were similar to the Hippocratic view (i.e., they regarded anesthesia as a result of disease or an injury) and definitely more limited than the direct account given by Dioscorides. As his writings and public stance show,12,21 Holmes was a true scholar of the history of medicine and greatly influenced by the Hippocratic way of thinking and practicing medicine. Interestingly, in Medical Essays,22 Holmes admits familiarity with the text of Dioscorides when he states: “I have welcomed Culpeper and Salmon to my bookcase as willingly as Dioscorides or Quincy . . .” It is thus likely that Holmes' inspiration was a result of his close acquaintance with ancient Greek medical literature. The semiology of pain is central to Hippocratic medicine. Following a holistic approach, Hippocrates did not treat pain as an isolated symptom or sign of disorder but rather as signifying the dynamic character of disease.23 He was the first in Western medical tradition to use nouns (πονοσ—ponos—pain/chronic pain, αλγοσ—algos—pain/acute pain, αλγημα—algema—pain felt or caused/suffering, οδυνη—odyne—severe pain/labor pain), adjectives (ισχυροσ—severe, σϕοδροσ—vehement, οξυσ—sharp, καταιγι ζων—rushing down like storm, διαλειπων—intermittent, ασωδησ—attended with nausea), and synthetic words (κεϕαλαλγια—cephalalgia—headache, καρδιαλγια—kardialgia—heartburn) to characterize the different qualities, as well as sources of pain, avoiding at the same time an overclassifying taxonomy of the symptom. It has been suggested that the use of an extensive vocabulary to describe pain indicates an increased sensitivity toward the symptom24; others argue that a paucity of terms indicates a precision of usage rather than sensitivity or insensitivity of the healers.25 The Hippocratic physician benefited from a concise vocabulary of pain that was mainly based on patients' description of symptoms, ensuring efficient patient–healer communication. Many of these descriptive Hippocratic terms found their way via all Western languages to modern medicine because they were precise and stable. These highly desirable qualities for technical scientific terms originate from the fact that ancient Greek is no longer a conversational language and thus, unlike current spoken languages, is characterized by an established and stable semantic function.26 Nevertheless, the study of phenomena with a distinctly emotional and psychological dimension, such as that of the lived experience of pain may benefit from the examination of specific cultural attributes.27 Therefore, one studying pain in ancient societies always encounters a problem of translation.28 This refers not only to pain terminology per se but also mostly to the existence, or not, of human universals—fundamental semantic primitives that can define the pain phenomenon across cultures, and time.29,30 The fact that the ancient world was acquainted with a number of anodynes (i.e., methods and substances to treat pain—odyne) known today creates the false impression that pain was both felt and relieved in the same way it is now. On the contrary, Hippocratic evidence does not support a primary role for pharmacopoeia in the treatment of pain, and, whenever used, the rationale behind its use is vague and does not appear to agree with contemporary standards.28 Is there a metalanguage (i.e., language for the object language) of pain that can objectively analyze the distinctive properties of incommensurable10,31 theories and descriptions, since antiquity? This is an area of rigorous investigation in the field of linguistic psychology. In conclusion, we applaud the authors for their interesting ponema (Greek word derived from ponos; meaning hard work) with ancient Greek medical literature. Although limited to concepts and terms mainly encountered in the specialty of anesthesiology, this lexicogrammatical assessment of the Hippocratic Canon is an important step in deciphering the origins of Western medicine.

Vietnam not only has a long history in traditional medicines but also has a diversity of medicinal plants to this day. Therefore, since 2016, the Government has introduced that the production of available medicinal materials was prioritized field in the development of pharmaceutical industry. However, until now, there is still little research related to drugs from medicinal materials and traditional medicines in our country, so we conducted this research to provide an overview of the registration situation of this drug group in Vietnam throughout the period 2009-2020. The results showed that in 12 years, drugs from medicinal materials and traditional medicines had had 2985 registration numbers, accounting for 6.9% of all registered drugs. Among 11 effect groups based on traditional medicines, the group of heat-clearing, detoxifying, dispelling rashes, and diuresis ranked first with 21.0%. Domestic drugs accounted for a large amount, with 2814 numbers (94.3%). Capsules and tablets were the two dosage forms with the highest number, holding 54.6%. In terms of drug components of registered traditional medicines, there were 87 products in single-component form and more than 1200 products in combination form. Our country had 224 manufacturers of this drug group, and 81 of them achieved GMP. In general, the registration of drugs from medicinal materials and traditional medicines met the guidelines set out by the Government, and manufactured drugs were qualified to serve the needs of people. However, in order to develop the field of drugs from medicinal materials and traditional medicines like other countries in Southeast Asia, in the coming years, Vietnam needs more support from the state management agencies and research efforts from pharmaceutical companies.
 Keywords: Registration number, Drugs from medicinal materials, Traditional medicines, Vietnam.
 References
 [1] The Government, Resolution No. 226-CP Regarding the Development of Traditional Ethnic Medicine in Close Combination with Modern Medicine, in Order to Build Vietnamese Medicine, Hanoi, 1978 (in Vietnamese).[2] The Government, Resolution No. 37-CP Strategic Orientation of People's Health Care and Protection in the Period 1996-2000 and Vietnam's National Drug Policy, Hanoi, 1996 (in Vietnamese).[3] The National Asembly, Law of Pharmacy, No. 105/2016/QH13, Hanoi, 2016 (in Vietnamese).[4] N. H. Trang, Analyzing and Evaluating the Group of Registered Traditional Medicines for Circulation in Vietnam Until 2006, Department of Pharmacoeconomics and Management, Hanoi University of Pharmacy, 2006 (in Vietnamese).[5] N. T. H. Yen, T. H. Ngan, VNU Journal of Science: Situation Analysis of the Drug Registration in Vietnam from 2009 to 2019, Vol. 37, No. 2, 2021, pp. 2, https://doi.org/10.25073/2588-1132/vnumps 4297 (in Vietnamese).[6] World Health Organization, Regional Office for South-East Asia, Access to Medical Products in the South-East Asia Region 2019: Review of Progress, https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/32682, 2019 (accessed on: March 27th, 2021).[7] Ministry of Health, Health Statistics Yearbook 2018, Medical Publshing House, Hanoi, 2018 (in Vietnamese).[8] The Prime Minister, Decision No. 1893/QD-Ttg Issuing the Program of Developing Traditional Medicine, Combining Traditional Medicine with Modern Medicine by 2030, Hanoi, 2019 (in Vietnamese).[9] The Prime Minister, Decision No. 68/QD-Ttg Approving the National Strategy on Development of the Vietnam Pharmaceutical Industry up to 2020, with A Vision Toward 2030, Hanoi, 2014 (in Vietnamese).[10] Drug Administration of Vietnam, List of Manufacturers of Drugs and Drug Materials in Vietnam that Satisfy the GMP Standards, https://dav.gov.vn/danh-sach-cssx-thuoc-nguyen-lieu-lam-thuoc-tai-vn-dap-ung-tieu-chuan-gmp-cap-nhat-den-ngay-0892020-n2930.html/, 2020 (accessed on: September 25th, 2020) (in Vietnamese).[11] Ministry of Health, Decision No. 3657/QD-BYT Issuing the List of 100 Medicinal Materials with High Medical and Economic Values to Focus on Development in 2020-2030, Hanoi, 2019 (in Vietnamese).[12] Ministry of Health, Circular No.19/2018/TT-BYT Introducing List of Essential Medicines, Hanoi, 2018 (in Vietnamese).[13] Ministry of Health, Circular No.05/2015/TT-BYT Promulgation of List of Oriental Medicines, Herbal Medicines and Traditional Ingredients Covered by Health Insurance, Hanoi, 2015 (in Vietnamese).[14] N. V. Cuong, Pharmaceutical Industry Update Report April 2020, http://www.fpts.com.vn/FileStore2/File/2020/04/10/Pharmaceutical_Update_Report_Apr2020_108753a8.pdf/, 2020 (accessed on: March 20th, 2021) (in Vietnamese).[15] Traphaco Joint Stock Company, Annual Report 2020, http://traphaco.com.vn/upload/files/20210322_TRA_AR2020%20-%20kyduyet%20(1).pdf/, 2020 (accessed on March 20th, 2021) (in Vietnamese).[16] The Prime Minister, Decision No. 1976/QD-Ttg Approving the Master Plan on Medicinal Plant Development Through 2020, with Orientations Toward 2030, Hanoi, 2013 (in Vietnamese).

This essay interprets and analyses the painting called “Dioscoridesdescribing the mandrake”, which is currently located in apermanent exhibition at Wellcome Collection in London, UK.The painting features Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek botanistand pharmacologist who practiced in the Roman Empire duringthe rule of Nero. Dioscorides is known for his influential DeMateria Medica, a five-volume book on medicinal uses of variousplants and herbs. What makes this script special and influentialis that it included a vast amount of herbs, detailed descriptions,scientific observations, as well as a scientific classification andorder. Upon reflection on this piece of art, I am reminded of themedical realm that we are gradually becoming a part of as medicalstudents. There is immense passion, knowledge and intelligencein how medicine became modern medicine today. For me, thepainting on Dioscorides’ De Materia Medica is a compelling visualrepresentation of centuries – long endeavor.

Reviewed by: Popular Medicine in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Explorations by W. V. Harris Aileen R. Das W. V. Harris. Popular Medicine in Graeco-Roman Antiquity: Explorations. Leiden: Brill, 2016. xv + 319 pp. Ill. $138.00 (978-90-04-32558-6). This edited volume, which comes out of a conference held at Columbia University on April 18–19, 2014, aims to redress the "pervasive if not unanimous refusal" (p. vii) in scholarship on ancient medicine to examine systematically "popular medicine."* In the preface, this gap is attributed to the fact that the bulk of evidence concerns "elite/learned/rationalistic" medicine (p. vii) and to some scholars' apparent denial of popular medicine's existence. The thirteen chapters in the collection describe the practices and practitioners often associated with the sphere of "popular medicine" across the expanse of Greco-Roman antiquity—from the classical period to late antiquity. While the introduction argues for a "dividing line" (p. 15) between "rationalistic" and "popular" medicine, the contributions in the volume appear to undercut this position. "Popular medicine" is a monolithic term that suggests a distinctive approach to health care. The chapters in this book, however, highlight the difficulty of pinning down exactly what makes a practice or practitioner "popular." A range of synonyms are used in the essays of this volume to gloss the meaning of "popular," including "widespread" (p. 90), "medico-magical" (p. 128), "traditional" (p. 11), "folk" (p. 65), "native" (p. 163), "civilian" (p. 225), "religious" (p. 95), "lay" (p. 148), and "practical" (p. 93). As certain chapters show, some of these words apply to popular medicine only in specific contexts. For instance, in her chapter on "Representations of the Physician in Jewish Literature," Catherine Hezser argues that the Palestinian rabbis distinguished popular modes of healing, which they connected with magic and idolatry, from their own participation in religious medicine, which was guided by halakhah. Therefore, in their culture, "religious" and "popular" practices of medicine are not synonymous, even if they sometimes overlapped. Several of the chapters try to reach a workable definition of popular medicine through antithesis: it is "non-elite" (p. 46) rather than elite; "irrational" (p. 199) rather than rational; "non-scientific" (p. 199) as opposed to scientific; and unorthodox as opposed to "orthodox" (p. 15). Laurence Totelin makes the judicious point that the dividing line between, for example, the orthodox and the unorthodox "depends on where one stands" (p. 78). She explains that to popular [End Page 372] practitioners such as drug sellers, the complicated theories of the elite doctor Galen may appear marginal or even unorthodox. Accordingly, the contingency of such negative definitions suggests that ancient sources and communities may have held conflicting views of what constituted "popular medicine." Citing the plurality and fluidity of healing practices in Greco-Roman antiquity, Vivian Nutton understandably raises doubts about the value of categories such as "popular" and "folk" medicine (p. 272). Rebecca Flemming comes to a similar conclusion in her illuminating study of anatomical votives, which was a socially inclusive phenomenon in the Roman world. She advises that the disappearance of anatomical ex-votos from Italy from the early first century BCE should not be interpreted as a sign of "mortal" (p. 123) medicine's victory over divine (perhaps "popular") cures. Rather, as she notes, the healing options after this period expanded in a "non-exclusive and often collaborative way" (p. 123). Therefore, this sharing of medical knowledge begs the question whether it is sensible to speak of a "popular" medicine in contrast to a "high" medicine. Social inclusivity is also a theme of David Leith's examination of the diffusion of sectarian (e.g., Empiricist and Methodist) medicine. His contribution challenges the assumption that sectarian medicine is "high" medicine (p. 231) because its practitioners treated elite patients in provincial capitals. He demonstrates that, while students may have traveled to urban centers such as Alexandria to learn from famous heresiarchs, most were not able to achieve the same degree of success among wealthy clientele as their instructors. Thus, for financial reasons, they returned to their own hometowns. Leith utilizes papyrological and epigraphical evidence to reveal how some pupils of sectarian medicine lived in small villages far away from major cities...

Introduction: This research focuses on determining the intersectionality of religion and medicine/health throughout the years through a literature review completed under the Health Humanities Undergraduate Research Program in the Department of English. The two have impacted each other greatly, contributing to new findings in the field of medicine and the founding of new religious sects. While originally very religious, medicine has become more secular as the years have passed. This research begins with Ancient Medicine and continues through to modern-day practices, tracing the influences of religion on medicine and its applications in the field of health. Literature Review: Ancient Medicine (450 BCE - 1600 CE) focuses on the major influences such as Hippocrates, Galen, and Asclepius. Additionally, various historical events impacted the development of medicine including the emergence of hospitals, the 4th Lateran Council. A focus on gender has also been determined during this period, involving the decreased importance and involvement of women in the process of healing. Development of Modern Medicine (1600-1950) involves topics such as mood disorders, ethnomedicine, and the development of religious sects through the alignment of religion and medicine. The focus of this section is largely based on Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, a text referencing mental afflictions we now define as depression and anxiety. Various ethnic practices are also identified and researched, such as the presence of secret doctors in African American communities, rising largely from slavery in the United States. Modern Medicine (1950-Present) focuses on concepts that are prominent in today’s field of healthcare including cultural competency, the treatment of women, the intersection of religion and mental health, and the secular perspective. Topics researched during this section emphasize the focus on mental health through a religious lens and the idea of westernized medicine versus eastern practices potentially causing a rift during patient care. Conclusion: This research reflects an overall change in the practice of medicine from being solely religious to largely secular and is illustrated through the three distinct periods in time. The latter end of the Development of Modern Medicine period reveals the biggest shift. By the time the Modern Medicine era arrives, secular medicine is practiced heavily, especially in Westernized locales. Modern-day concepts such as cultural competency have grown as Westernized medicine has interacted at greater levels with Eastern practices. These results exhibit a definite change in the application and practice of religion in the field of medicine in the modern-day as compared to ancient times.

The pharmacopeia of Pedanius Dioscorides (20-70 ce), entitled Peri Ylis Ialikis (latinized as De Materia Medica, On Medical Matters)was written in Greek about the year 65. It was destined to be one of the most famous books on pharmacology and medicine but is also richin horticulture and plant ecology. An illustrated alphabetical version of Dioscorides’ manuscript was completed in Constantinople about 512. This magnificent volume was prepared and presented to the imperial Princess Juliana Anicia (462-527), daughter of the Emperor Anicius Olybrius, Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. The bound manuscript stored in Ōsterreichische National bibliothek in Vienna is available in facsimile and is now referred to as the Juliana Anicia Codex (JAC) or the Codex Vindobonensis Dioscorides. The JAC contains 383 paintings of plants including many horticultural crops, many of which can still be recognized in modern day examples. Ananalys is of the illustrations indicates that they were made by numerous artists of varying skills and it is probable that some were derived from an earlier lost version. The Codex Neapolitanus (NAP) (late 6th or early 7th century) which now contains 406 plant images on 172folios resides in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples is closely related to JAC, and is also available in facsimile editions. A comparison ofthe 352 common illustrations contained in both NAP and JAC suggests that many of the illustrations derived from a common source,perhaps an illustrated collection owned by Theodosius II, but the possibility also exists that some of the NAP images are direct copies of JAC images. There are 31 images in JAC which do not appear in NAP, 1 is a 13th century addition, 4 are images that can be assigned to2 torn pages. and 26 can be assigned to 11 missing leaves of the NAP. Of the 54 images in NAP which do not appear in JAC, 2 are likely to have been Mandragora included in lost folios in JAC, but the other 52 may include other images that existed in the common source. While common images in NAP and JAC are often very similar, 11.6% show substantially differences including variants of the same plant in different stages. Additional images in the archetypic source including different stages of the same plant could have provided the copyists working on JAC and NAP the opportunity to select different images to fulfill their commissions.

Plant illustrations were compared in three ancient illustrated recensions of the non-illustrated manuscript of Dioscorides titled Περί ύλης ιατρικής (De Materia Medica in Latin; On Medical Matters in English) written about the year 65: Juliana Anicia Codex (JAC) or Codex Vindobonensis produced in the year 512, Codex Neapolitanus (NAP) produced in the late 6th or early 7th century, and Morgan 652 (M652) produced between 927 and 985. M652 contains many illustrations that are similar to those of JAC, and it has long been evident that large parts of the M652 were based on the JAC or a precursor. NAP also appears to be a source in the creation of M652 since M652 contains several images that appear in NAP but not JAC, and when images are common in all three herbals about 19.3% of the M652 images are closer to NAP than JAC. We conclude that M652 illustrations are based on images from both JAC and NAP. A database of the three herbals is available online www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/herbalimages.