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The Herbal in Antiquity and its Transmission to later Ages

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2013

Charles Singer
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Extract

§ 1. Introduction.—A Herbal is a collection of descriptions of plants put together for medical purposes. Most herbal remedies are quite devoid of any rational basis. It may be taken for granted that the writer of a herbal is unable to treat evidence on a scientific basis. He makes a ‘direct attack’ on disease, without any ‘nonsense about theories.’ The herbal is thus to be distinguished from the scientific botanical treatise by the fact that its aims are exclusively ‘practical’—a vague and foolish word with which, from the days of Plato to our own, men have sought to conceal from themselves and from others their destitution of anything in the nature of general ideas.

A herbal is, moreover, to be distinguished from most other medical works not only in method but also in form. Its arrangement is under remedies rather than under diseases or conditions to be treated. A herbal is, in fact, primarily a descriptive drug-list or, as we now call it, a pharmacopoeia. Pharmacopoeias include a number of substances that cannot be classed as of vegetable origin. Nevertheless, in many ancient as in most modern medical systems, there has been a tendency for remedies to be of a herbal nature. The pharmacopoeias of the Greco-Roman world thus tended to approximate to the nature of herbals.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of Hellenic Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 1 , 1927 , pp. 1 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies 1927

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References

1 In antiquity the word pharmacopoeia was used to describe a drug-compounder, not a drug-list. The English usage dates from the seventeenth century, and Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)CrossRefGoogle Scholar is perhaps responsible for it. A modern pharmacopoeia describes only the drugs and their preparation, without discussing their application.

2 On the plants mentioned in the Hippocratic Collection see von Grot, R., ‘Ueber die in der hippokratischen Schriftsammlung enthaltenen pharmakologischen Kenntnisse,’ in Kobert's, R.Historische Studien aus dem Pharmakologischen Institut der Kaiserlichen Universität Dorpat, Halle, 1889, I. p. 58Google Scholar, and Berendes, J., Die Pharmacie bei den alten Kulturvölkern, 2 vols., Halle, 1891.Google Scholar

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6 The standard edition of the Theophrastan botanical works is that of F. Wimmer in the second (Paris) edition (Didot, no date, but about 1850). The ninth book of the Historia plantarum is very accessible in Sir A. Hort's edition in the Loeb Library.

7 Pliny, , Historia naturalis, XXV. § 5.Google Scholar

8 Galen, K. XII. p. 989. All references to Galen are given to Kuan's edition (K) unless otherwise stated.

9 Celsus, , De re medica, V. 18Google Scholar, §§ 47 and 13.

10 Galen, K. XII. p. 776.

11 Dioskurides quotes him four times, Pliny once and Galen several times.

12 Polybius, V. 81.

13 Collected by Wellmann, M. in Pauly-Wissowa, I. col. 2136.Google Scholar

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16 The works of Nikander in the edition of F. S. Lehrs are conveniently issued in a Paris (Didot) reprint, without date but about 1850.

17 Galen, K. XIII. p. 267. Celsus, VI. § 3.

18 Seneca, , Epistles, 59Google Scholar, § 7.

19 These have been collected by M. Wellmann in his edition of Dioskurides, 3 vols., Berlin, 1914, III. p. 146. All references to Dioskurides are given to this standard edition, unless otherwise stated.

20 Pliny, XXV. § 62.

21 Ibid., § 3.

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24 Pseudo-Galen, , De virtute centaureae, § 2.Google Scholar

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26 The passages from Krateuas can be consulted in the facsimile of the Juliana Anicia MS., but are conveniently reprinted in Wellmann, Dioskurides, III. p. 144.Google Scholar

27 Those drawings associated with passages ascribed to Krateuas are all by the same hand, and in the same style.

page 8 note 1 The foliation refers to the Juliana Anicia Codex. In that MS. the description of the uses of the plant is often on a different page to the corresponding figure.

28 See Pliny, XXI. § 94.

29 The passage which follows is corrupt.

30 Here follows a complicated passage that is perhaps interpolated. Cp. Pliny, XXII. § 33. The passage bears no resemblance to the quotation from Krateuas given by Pliny, XXII. § 34.

31 It is perhaps worth noting that a dried plant combined with nitre and sulphur provides the ingredients out of which gunpowder can be made.

32 Cp. Pliny, XXI. § 78.

33 The last sentence is perhaps corrupt. In any event the meaning is lost. The ‘remedies of Democritus’ are mentioned in several places by Pliny (XX. §§ 9, 13 and 53; XXV. § 6). For Anagallis injected into the nose cp. Pliny, XXV. § 92.

34 Galen, K. VI. p. 792 seq., XII. p. 31.

35 For Pamphilos see Wellmann, M., Hermes, LI. p. 1.Google Scholar

36 Galen, K. XIII. p. 996. See also K. XII. pp. 846 and 946.

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37 Galen, K. XII. p. 626.

38 Thus in the University Library at Strasbourg, MS. Als. 35, is an ‘Expositio theriacae Andromachi et coelestis ut ex mithridati in officina Stroepliniana MDCCXLIV.’ See Wickersheimer, E. in the Bulletin de la Société de la Pharmacie, March, 1920.Google Scholar

39 There is much on the mediaeval Theriacs and Mithridates in Schelenz, H., Geschichte der Pharmazie, Berlin, 1904CrossRefGoogle Scholar; in Schmidt, A., Drogen und Drogenhandel im Altertum, Leipzig, 1924Google Scholar, who gives (p. 10) the Theriac of Andromachus in convenient form; in the same author's Die Kölner Apotheken, Bonn, 1918, and in Lewin, L., Die Gifte in der Weltgeschichte, Berlin, 1920.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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41 Galen, K. XII. p. 889.

42 The fragments of Damocrates are collected by Bussemaker, C., Fragmenta poematum rem naturalem vel medicinam spectantium, Paris. 1850.Google Scholar

43 Preserved in Galen, K. XIII. p. 350.

44 Galen, K. XIII. p. 996.

45 See Wellmann, M., Die Schrift des Dioskurides, Περὶ ἁπλῶν φαρμάκων, Berlin, 1914.Google Scholar The work itself is reprinted by Wellmann in his edition of Dioskurides, III. 150.

46 The most satisfactory identifications of the Dioskuridean flora will be found in Berendes, J., Des Pedanios Dioskurides aus Anazarbos Arzneimittellehre, Stuttgart, 1902.Google Scholar

47 de Tournefort, J. P., Relation d'un voyage du Levant, Paris, 1717.Google Scholar

48 Sibthorp's Flora Graeca was posthumously published in an edition of only thirty copies in ten volumes, by J. E. Smith and J. Lindley, between 1806 and 1840.

49 Mock, R., Pflanzliche Arzneimittel bei Dioskurides die schon in Corpus Hippocraticum vorkommen, Inaug. Diss., Tübingen, 1919.Google Scholar

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51 The study of the MSS. of Dioskurides is chiefly the work of M. Wellmann, who has devoted an immense amount of labour to the subject. Wellmann's conclusions will be found in the article in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, Vol. V., Stuttgart, 1905Google Scholar, and in the preface to Vol. II. of his text of Dioskurides, Berlin, 1906–7. Much information can be obtained from Diels, H., Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte, II., Berlin, 1906.Google Scholar Some results are summarised by Singer, Charles, Studies in the History and Method of Science, II. p. 64, Oxford, 1921.Google Scholar

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53 Escorial III. R. 3 is an eleventh-century manuscript, which has been prepared with reference also to other sources.

54 A bibliography of some of the writings on them is given in Karabaçek, J. de, De codicis Dioscuridei Aniciae Julianae, Leyden, 1906, p. 83.Google Scholar

55 Some of these names are discussed by Wellmann, M. in Hermes, XXXIII, p. 369, Berlin, 1898.Google Scholar

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57 A facsimile page of this Neapolitanus will be found in the New Palaeographical Society, II., Plate 45.

58 There is a good fifteenth-century copy of Juliana Anicia in the University Library at Cambridge, Ee 5. Another is described by Penzig, O., Contribuzione atta storia della botanica, Genoa, 1904.Google Scholar

59 Paris 2091 is a volume of medical fragments. The figures in question are on folios 113–117 v. A seventeenth-century descendant of the Juliana Anicia is at Bologna.

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61 Pliny, XIX. § 8.

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63 Edited by Valentine Rose, Leipzig, 1894.

64 Munich 337. Printed in full by K. Hoffmann, T. M. Auraeher and H. Stadler, in Vollmoller's, K.Romanische Forschungen, I. 50Google Scholar; X. 181; X. 301; XI. 1. Erlangen, 1882–1897.

65 Vienna, Lat. 16. See Oder, , Berl. phil. Wochene., 1906, p. 522Google Scholar, and Eichenfeld, , Wiener Jahrbuch der Litteratur, XVI. p. 36.Google Scholar

66 Cassiodorus, , Institutio divinarum literarum, c. 31.Google Scholar ‘Si vobis non fuerit graecarum litterarum nota facundia, imprimis habetis herbarium Dioscoridis qui herbas agrorum mirabili proprietate disseruit atque depinxit.’

67 The list given by Diels, H., Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte, Berlin, 1906Google Scholar, is very imperfect, and includes only a fraction of the MSS.

68 Reproduced in the Atlas of Giacosa, P., Magistri Salernitani nondum editi, Borne, 1901. See also his text, p. 352.Google Scholar

69 Printed by Cockayne, O., Leechdoms, Wortcunning, and Starcraft of Early England, 3 vols., Vol. I., London, 1864.Google Scholar

70 A number of medical MSS. in the Beneventan script, and therefore of South Italian origin, are listed by Lowe, E. A., The Beneventan Script, Oxford, 1914, pp. 18–19.Google Scholar There are, however, also many South Italian medical MSS. not in this script.

71 Reproduced as frontispiece by Rohde, E., Old English Herbals, London, 1922CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and here given by kind permission of Messrs. Longmans, Green and Co.

72 Vatican, Lat. 3868, and Paris, Lat. 7859, both of about A.D. 900. The Paris MS. can be examined in a readily accessible facsimile.

73 Stadler, H., Janus, IV. 548, Leyden, 1889.Google Scholar

73a printed at Colle near Siena by Johannes de Medemblich. It is the only incunable printed at Colle. Hain-Copinger 6258, Proctor 7241.

74 Described by Sudhoff, K., Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, X. 226, Leipzig, 1917.Google Scholar

75 Reproduced in facsimile for the Roxburgh Club by Gunther, R. T., The Herbal of Apuleius Barbarus, from the early twelfth-century Manuscript formerly in the Abbey of Bury St. Edmunds. The Roxburgh Club, Oxford, 1925.Google Scholar

76 I am glad to have this view confirmed in a private letter from Dr. M. R. James.

77 Described and figured by Sudhoff, K., Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, X. 105, Leipzig, 1916.Google Scholar

78 L. Traube, in his Die lateinischen Handschriften in alter Capitalis und in Uncialis, does not give any locality for this MS. See his Vorlesungen und Abhandlungen, Vol. I., Munich, 1909.

78a In most of the Apuleian herbal texts there is also a Symphytum album, which is different from the Sinfitos that we are here discussing.

78b The passage is unfortunately missing in the Juliana Anicia.

79 Rome, , Barberini, 160.Google Scholar

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81 Ten manuscripts of this work are recorded by Diels, H., Die Handschriften der antiken Arzte, Berlin, 1906Google Scholar, but there are many others in a more or less interpolated state.

82 Kästner, H. F., Pseudo-Dioscoridis de Herbis Femininis, in Hermes, XXXI. p. 578, Berlin, 1896.Google Scholar

83 Compare Laur. Plut. 73/41 of the eleventh century with the Cassel Apuleius and Paris 6862 of the tenth century and with the Anglo-Saxon Apuleius.

84 A bibliography is given by MrNock, A. D., Folklore, XXXVI, p. 93, London, 1925Google Scholar, in an article in which he corrects some of the writer's errors.

85 Sacy, Sylvestre de, Abd-Allatif Relation de l'Egypte, pp. 495 and 549.Google Scholar

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88 Camus, G., L'opera salernitana Circa Instans ed il testo primitivo del Grant Herbier en Francois, Modena, 1886.Google Scholar

89 W. L. Schreiber, Die Kräuterbücker des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts, with a facsimile of Schöffer's, PeterHortus Sanitatis Deutsch (Gart der Gesundheit) of Mainz, 1485.Google Scholar

90 Arber, A., Herbals, their Origin and Evolution, Cambridge, 1912Google Scholar; Klebs, A. C., ‘Incunabula Lists, Herbals,’ in Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, XI. and XII, Chicago, 1918Google Scholar, and Early Herbals, Lugano, 1925; Rohde, E. S., The Old English Herbals, London, 1922CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Singer, C., ‘Herbais,’ in the Edinburgh Review, London, 1923.Google Scholar

91 In addition to the acknowledgements made in the text, the author has to thank Messrs. Longmans, Miss E. S. Bohde and the Provost of Eton for permission to reproduce Pl. V, and for the use of the clichés from which it is printed.