Introduction: The Transfer of Pharmacological Knowledge in Late Antiquity (original) (raw)
This study set out to test the hypothesis that specific elements of Assyro-Babylonian medical therapy were present in the medical/pharmacological literature of the Early Roman Empire (1st-2nd centuries CE), a hypothesis that had hitherto been unexplored by comparative scholarship. The investigation was conducted by analysing the materia medica (versus other aspects, such as disease concepts or formal structure) of the two cultures, and in particular Dreckapotheke-ingredients, the medicinal efficacy of which is, physically speaking, inexplicable. In so doing, textual connections or interactions that could ultimately validate the research hypothesis were sought. In the first chapter, the main objectives of the dissertation are introduced, the chronological and geographical boundaries of the sources delineated, and the term Dreckapotheke defined. Here the methodology of focusing on animal-based ingredients as a way around the major obstacles inherent in the field is discussed and justified, and finally a brief history of previous related scholarship is provided. The next chapter (Ch. 2) sketches the main evidence for contacts and cross-cultural transmission of ideas between the civilizations of ancient Mesopotamia and the Greek and Roman world in order to provide a plausible context into which to situate the transfer of medical knowledge. This is followed in Chapter 3 by some reflections about how scholars in Babylonia and in the Early-Roman Empire perceived and dealt with the ambiguity conveyed by Dreckapotheke-like ingredients. Nine case studies are then presented, in which the same (puzzling) medical ingredients are identified as being prescribed for the cure of the same symptoms in both Babylonian and Graeco-Roman therapeutical literature. The cases discussed are almost certainly not coincidental, justifying the theory of a transfer of traditional knowledge concerning the use of these drugs. Next, an edition of the cuneiform pharmacological list Uruanna III, lines 1-143 (138) is provided in Chapter 4, as this list of drug names was a crucial tool to develop various hypotheses in the thesis. This text has previously been thought to be a list of secret names, but its analysis indicates that the redactors instead attempted to group together non-canonical/alias names of drugs as part of a large-scale project aimed at reorganizing and systematizing the nomenclature of pharmacological substances (which interpretation, it is pointed out, is corroborated by the colophon itself). The fifth and final chapter concludes that similarities between Babylonian and Greek and Roman medicine are not only to be found in the general structure of the recipes or in a handful of more or less singular healing methods (as was previously argued), but also in the use of specific medical ingredients. Additionally, some elements of Babylonian medical knowledge are shown to have filtered into the West not only before the Greek Archaic period, as is usually believed, but also at a later date through other avenues. Finally, it is argued that some of the Dreckapotheke names found in Graeco-Roman medical compendia are likely to have reflected more ancient practices and traditions, in which these names were not to be interpreted literally, but rather were aliases of real medicinal plants. The implications of these findings are far reaching, and more discoveries await future research.
In this volume a distinguished international team of scholars examines the history of drugs within all the major medical traditions of the medieval Mediterranean, namely Byzantine, Islamicate, Jewish, and Latin, and in so doing analyses a considerable number of previously unedited or barely explored texts. A Mediterranean-wide perspective permits a deeper understanding of broader phenomena such as the transfer of scientific knowledge and cultural exchange, by looking beyond single linguistic traditions or political boundaries. It also highlights the diversity and vitality of the medieval Mediterranean pharmacological tradition, which, through its close links with cookery, alchemy, magic, religion and philosophy, had to be able to adapt to multiple contexts, not least to changing social and political realities, as in the case of drugs as diplomatic gifts. Medieval mediterranean pharmacology Petros Bouras-Vallianatos; Part I. Transmission of Pharmacological Knowledge: Texts and Contexts: 1. Ibn al-Tilmīdh's Book on Simple Drugs: a Christian physician from Baghdad on the Arabic, Greek, Syriac, and Persian nomenclature of plants and minerals Fabian Käs; 2. Drugs, provenance, and efficacy in early medieval Latin medical recipes Jeffrey Doolittle; 3. De sexaginta animalibus: AaLatin translation of an Arabic Manāfiʿ al-ḥayawān text on the pharmaceutical properties of animals Kathleen Walker-Meikle; 4. Arabic terms in Byzantine Materia Medica: oral and textual transmission Maria Mavroudi; 5. The theriac of medieval al-Shām Zohar Amar, Yaron Serri, and Efraim Lev; 6. 'Already Verified'-A Hebrew herbal between text and illustration Sivan Gottlieb; Part II. The Borders of Pharmacology: 7. Making magic happen: understanding drugs as therapeutic substances in later Byzantine sorcery and beyond Richard Greenfield; 8. Remedies or superstitions: Maimonides on Mishnah Shabbat 6:10 Phillip I. Lieberman; 9. When the doctor is not around: Arabic-Islamic self-treatment manuals as cultured people's guides to medico-pharmacological knowledge. The Mamluk period (1250-1517) Paulina B. Lewicka; 10. Digestive syrups and after dinner drinks-food or medicine? Leigh Chipman; 11. Late Byzantine alchemical recipe books: metallurgy, pharmacology, and cuisine Matteo Martelli; 12. Making connections between the medical properties of stones and philosophy in the work of Albertus Magnus Athanasios Rinotas; 13. Healing gifts: the role of diplomatic gift exchange in the movement of Materia Medica between the Byzantine and Islamicate worlds Koray Durak.
In the past, Ancient Egyptian medicinal prescriptions have been the focus of research by scientists from a variety of disciplines, especially Egyptologists, historians of science, physicians, biologists, and pharmacists. Their work considers, in most cases, today’s natural scientific perspective, namely the question whether a remedy may have had an effect in a ‘modern’ sense. Some of the lexicographical works concerning drug or symptom names, are based on such a correlation, proposing a drug or disease name for an untranslatable word in a prescription by evaluating the indications and looking for effective drugs, which could have been available in Ancient Egypt. This paper points in the opposite direction. The aim is to introduce new methodological tools to gain an emic, namely an insider’s, perspective on medicinal prescriptions, by applying an experimental-archaeological perspective and by focussing on manufacturing processes, its terminology and its interrelations with ingredients, symptoms and patients. The paper starts with a pharmacological and philological examination of a prescription against worms, questioning its conventional translation. Afterwards, the new approach is introduced. With the help of three concrete recipe examples, semantic and process-oriented readings of prescription texts as medical re-enactments of symptoms and healing processes will be demonstrated. As a result, we will achieve conceptual structures in order to recover features of previously philologically undetermined drugs and symptoms, and new perspectives that will help to broaden our knowledge of the concepts of Ancient Egyptian ‘physiology’ and ‘pathophysiology’.
Development of Pharmacy In Egypt During Mamluk Age (648-923 Of Hijra / 1250-1517 A.D)
Syrian Herbs and Alternative Medicines and Nutrition Association (SHAMNA), 2013
"Since the beginning of the creation, humanity has suffered from diseases, and tried to treat them using everything was within reach, including botanic, animal, or metallic substances. Neanderthal man had described herbs to treat his parents and relatives; later, the idea was developed to conform with the development of civilization. Al-Razi (860-923 AD) is considered the first scientist who had written about separating pharmacy and medicine. He had scientifically dealt with the idea, explaining the aim of this separation. For more clarification, he had devoted a special section (section 22) in which he said “pharmacy is the knowledge of drugs, and distinguishing them, the good drugs from the bad ones, and the pure drugs from the fake ones”. Later, Abo Al-Raihan Al-Beruni (d. 430/1039 AD) wrote his book “pharmacy in medicine” (al-saydaneh fi al tib); so that, he is considered the first scientist who completely separated pharmacy from medicine, through his indicating that pharmacy became independent of medicine, just as the prosody is separate from the art of poetry, and logic from philosophy. Abo Al-Raihan Al-Beruni defined pharmacy as “ knowing single simples, all their kinds, types, and selected images, and making compounds from drugs as directed by the therapist”. In this way, the first signs for the prominence of pharmacology appeared, the science which I have studied through my research in the Mamluk period in Egypt, to show the different aspects that was associated with the development of this science during this era, and the degree by which it was influenced by the preceding ages, and the civilizations of this era, and the degree to which it had influenced the ages that followed it."
Perplexing Remedies in Ancient Medicine: 'Dreckapotheke' in Mesopotamia and the Graeco Roman World
2024
The topic of a potential relationship between Babylonian and Greco-Roman medicine has been discussed for a long time, yet it is notoriously difficult to give it flesh and bones by means of concrete examples. The main goal of this study is to identify real elements in the therapeutical traditions of the one system that can be connected to those of the other, which would confirm a certain degree of practical knowledge-sharing between the two cultures. By analyzing Dreckapotheke (filthy medicaments) and similarly perplexing medical ingredients, and by exploiting the concept of misunderstandings in translation, I show how elements of Assyro-Babylonian therapy were still present or emerging in the pharmaceutical compositions of the Early Roman Empire, ultimately supporting the idea of at least occasional transfers of medical knowledge between the two cultures. With its positive findings, this study contributes to a broader reconstruction of the context within which ancient medicine developed. It also finds reciprocal explanations of obscure passages and fuels further questions regarding the medical interrelations/interconnections between these neighboring ancient cultures.
T. Pommerening / W. Bisang (Hgg.): Classification from Antiquity to Modern Times. Sources, Methods, and Theories from an Interdisciplinary Perspective. Berlin/Boston: de Gruyter 2017, 2017
This essay is intended to embark upon a path of method, in which the classifications contained in Ancient Egyptian formulae, or prescriptions, are more closely characterized; their potential for recovering comprehensive and specific concepts of drugs and effects will be discussed. In medical papyri there are four different kinds of classification, depending on focus: 1) classifiers at the end of individual words – a general phenomenon in the Ancient Egyptian language; 2) the increased occurrence of nominal compounds, especially in relation to the names of drugs and illnesses, compounds that are unavoidably connected to the creation of subordinate level categories; 3) systematic list-type sequences of the formula content and the correlations appearing therein; 4) the configuration of chosen formulae within a papyrus. These different means of classification will be more closely determined with respect to their specificities (i.e. type of source, medium, the circle of users and the Duration of use), motivations, types (exclusive or flexible class limits, hierarchizations) and criteria. It can be shown that the classification types 3) and 4) are directly connected to concepts of drugs and effects, but that ascertaining the individual specificities of 1) and 2) in relation to formula texts can reveal the concepts of drugs and effects behind them.
Ancient Pharmacology - Theophrastus' Historia Plantarum and Pliny the Elder's Historia Naturalis
The focus of the following study was to examine the state of pharmacology in the ancient world through the texts of Theophrastus and Pliny the Elder to give a better understanding of Classical Greek and Roman pharmacology. Both men authored vital works to the preservation and transmission of pharmacological data. This study will look further into each man's works to evaluate their 'scientific' qualities; how did they conduct their research, how did they write their works, and how each work is vital for the interdisciplinarity of history and science. Each work will also be evaluated for its scientific value today, relating the information each man wrote and how it can be used for current research. Ultimately, this study has the goal of showing that ancient texts have a vital role to play in a larger capacity than just the humanities, but also the sciences. Science is an evolving being that requires progress and with the inclusion of historic texts, which have been underutilized, there is a whole new body of research to be discovered. Before examining Theophrastus' Enquiry into Plants or Historia Plantarum and Pliny the Elder's Natural History or Historia Naturalis, it is useful to examine the history of pharmacology up to their works and briefly examining the impact of their works after ancient times. Pharmacology begins prehistorically with some evidence of early modern humans and the use of plants. The beginning of written history is where the beginnings of pharmacology start to take shape. To better understand the tradition each man was continuing and their impacts on future progress, the brief history of pharmacology will be examined in ancient Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt, Classical Greece, Empirical Rome, The Golden Age of Islam, and the European Renaissance. There is of course a large tradition of pharmacology in Chinese and Indian medicine, but for the study of Theophrastus and Pliny, the pharmacology of the Mediterranean is all that needs to be encompassed.
NETSOL: New Trends in Social and Liberal Sciences, 2019
Zohar Amar and Efraim Levy cover a rarely-touched topic on early medieval Arabic medicine. Although the title Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine suggests that the book primarily focuses on Arab medicine, by seeking the roots of Arab medicine the authors delve into the medical history of Arab neighbors from Greeks and Persians to Indians. By carefully examining the usage of various plants, herbs, and other remedies that originated from the Greek, Indian, and Persian societies, the authors seek to find how these societies contributed to the development of early medieval Arabic medicine. The book further traces the origins of pharmacology prior to the development of Arab medicine. Relying on an ancient Greek source, materia medica, a book of collected pharmacological knowledge, the authors find heavy Greek influence on the development of Arab medicine. Materia medica guided physicians to help their patients from the first century AD to the twentieth century and has been expanded over the centuries.
It is a commonplace that one of the fields in which Arabic medicine advanced far beyond Greek medicine is pharmacology. 2 This paper aims to examine this commonplace by looking at the use of drugs in one book written in Greek, Galen's Commentary on Hippocrates' 'Epidemics', which was translated into Arabic by Ḥunayn ibn ʾIsḥāq, and then by considering how recipes attributed to these three masters appear in medieval Arabic pharmacopoeias. I will begin by discussing the drugs that appear in Commentary on Hippocratesʼ 'Epidemicsʼ, Book Two, and then continue to the Hippocratic, Galenic and Ḥunaynian recipes in later pharmacopoeias. As we will see, Galen is the most prominent of the three authorities; thus I will end by asking what these sources can tell us about Galen's image among pharmacists and physicians in the Islamic tradition.
Ch 1. Antiquity. The Early Origins of Medicine
Holism and Complementary Medicine. Origins and Principles. Allen and Unwin, Crow's Nest, NSW, 2006, 2006
This chapter examines the early origins of medicine focusing particularly on the forms of medicine practised in Egypt and Greece. It describes the belief systems and philosophies underlying earlier forms of medicine and their relationship with the practices and philosophies that continue to find expression in holistic medicine, traditional medicine, and complementary medicine.
Starting from the two major authorities (auctoritates) of Ancient and Medieval pharmacology, Dioscorides and Galen, my paper provides an overview of the systems of classification of medicamina simplicia derived from plants, animals, metals, and precious stones as recorded in the Latin pharmacological literature from Late Antiquity until the middle of the 12th century, including its intellectual and philosophical background as it determines the rational criteria that regulate the acquisition of knowledge and the systematic ordering and structuring of such medicamina according to their nature, their effect, and their therapeutical properties. In three chronologically structured paragraphs, the paper first examines the two main pharmacological texts written during the Antiquity, viz. Dioscorides' De materia medica and Galen's De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis et facultatibus. From there, it moves on to the main types of pharmacological collections produced in the Late Antiquity, the so-called Antibalomena, Dynamidia, and Quid pro quo lists. The period of transition from Late Antiquity to the first centuries of the Middle Ages was marked by the redaction of some well known herbals that will dominate over the Latin pharmacological literature until at least the end of the 12th century, viz. the spurious Alphabetum Galeni, the Herbarium attributed to the Pseudo-Apuleius, and the medical poem De viribus herbarum written by Odo of Meung, but better known under the title of 'Macer floridus'. The main contribution to the perception and classification of natural elements provided by those works lied in the criteria of structuring and ordering nature according to its relevance and use in medicine. In contrast, the Arabic-Latin pharmacological literature reaching the Western world thanks to Con-stantine the African's translations of Al-Majusi's Pantegni and Ibn al-Jazzar's Liber de gradibus provided medieval Latin medicine and pharmacology with a deeper and stronger theoretical background that gave contemporary physicians and medical authors belonging, among others, to the Medical School of Salerno, the chance to reason about the rational criteria and elements of recognition and classification of the nature of medicamina, their qualities, and their effects. The 'theoretical turn' initiated by Constantine's translations and further developed by the authors belonging to, or connected with, the Medical School of Salerno (Bartholomew of Salerno, Platearius, the Magister Salernus, John of Saint-Paul) played therefore a decisive role in the history of rational pharmacology, and will be the object of a long discussion in the third paragraph. My overview ends in the same section with what can be considered the most impressive and influential account of rational pharmacology pro-102 Iolanda Ventura duced and read during the Middle Ages, viz. the first treatise of the second book of Avicenna's Liber canonis, which represented, with the discussion of its long sections on the acquisition of pharmacological knowledge per experimentum and per ratioci-nationem, the most complete, the deepest, and the most problematic and debated pharmacological manual of the Late Middle Ages, whose reception and meaning in Medieval universities was exemplified, among others, by John of Saint-Amand and his pharmacological works. Article published in: Classification from Antiquity to Modern Times, ed T. Pommerening and W. Bisang, Berlin-New York 2017
Review: Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine, by Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev
Studies in Late Antiquity, 2017
Zohar Amar is a Professor in the Department of Land of Israel Studies and Archaeology and Director of the Unit on the History of Medicine at Bar-Ilan University, Israel who has written extensively on the identification and movement of plants in the pre-modern world, including a study attempting to identify all of the flora in the Bible. Efraim Lev is a Professor in the Department of Israel Studies and Head of The Interdisciplinary Center for the Broader Application of Genizah Research at the University of Haifa, Israel who focuses more specifically on the history of medieval materia medica. Together Amar and Lev have produced a study of the impact on medieval Middle Eastern, Mediterranean, and European medicine of drugs introduced to those regions following the Arab conquests of the seventh and eighth centuries. The two have collaborated in research and writing for several years, and they laid the groundwork for this study in a series of joint publications on subjects included in this volume. Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine will be an essential resource for years to come. Its descriptions of new medicinal substances traveling from East to West now provide the growing number of scholars from a variety of fields interested in the history of materia medica with introductions to the origins, movements, uses, and even physical appearances of those substances.
Islamic Pharmacology in the Middle Ages: Theories and Substances
European Review, 2008
From the ninth to the 13th century, numerous works on pharmacology were written in Arabic in Eastern as well as in Western parts of the Islamic world. Starting from Galen and Dioscorides, the Islamic authors greatly improved on the Greek heritage. Among the theories they developed, two major trends stand out. The first trend emphasized medicinal degrees of primary qualities, and thus could lead to the promotion of mathematical rules. The second trend, on the contrary, focused on ‘the whole form’ of the substances, and opened the way to an experimental approach. Both these trends will continue in European pharmacology up to the Modern period.
Fossils” of practical medical knowledge from medieval Cairo
Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 2008
Aim of the study: To asses the scientific value of the practical medical fragments found in the Cairo Genizah (10th century), as a useful source for ethnopharmacological purposes (in exposing rare and usually inaccessible original medieval practical knowledge of medicinal substances to present-day researchers), and to reconstruct the practical drugs and their uses. Materials and methods: A methodology distinguishing between theoretical (about 1500 fragments) and practical medical knowledge (about 230 fragments) was created and used. The information regarding the practical medicinal substances was extracted from prescriptions (140), lists of drugs (70) and few letters of physicians. Results: The reconstructed lists of practical (278) and theoretical (414) drugs allow us to recognize and quantify the gap between them in medieval times (136). Conclusions: We propose that the data obtained from ancient prescriptions is comparable to ethnopharmacological surveys. The finding of plants such as myrobalan, saffron, licorice, spikenard and lentisk, all of which have scientifically proven anti-microbial/bacterial and anti-fungal activity, sheds a helpful light on the medical decision-making of the medieval practitioners in respect of the plants they applied as drugs. With the wealth of information meticulously assembled from these time capsules we expect to make a significant contribution to contemporary efforts at locating modern drugs in ancient roots and gauging their feasibility.
Traditional ancient Egyptian medicine: A review
Saudi Journal of Biological Sciences, 2021
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