Dioscorides.
It has been a subject of lively dispute whether Dioscorides lived before or after Pliny. It seems certain that one of these authors copied from the other on particular matters, and in neither case is credit given. Pliny was born A.D. 23 and died A.D. 79, and would therefore have lived under the Emperors Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius, and Vespasian. Suidas, the historian, who probably wrote in the tenth century, dates Dioscorides as contemporary with Antony and Cleopatra, about B.C. 40, and some Arab authorities say he wrote at the time of Ptolemy VII, which would be still a hundred years earlier. But Dioscorides dedicates his great work on materia medica to Areus Asclepiades, who is otherwise unknown, but mentions as a friend of his patron the consul Licinius Bassus. There was a consul Lecanius Bassus in the reign of Nero, and it is therefore generally supposed that Dioscorides was in his prime at that period, and would consequently be a contemporary of Pliny’s. It is possible that both authors drew from another common source.
Dioscorides was a native of Anazarbus in Cilicia, a province where the Greek spoken and written was proverbially provincial. Our word solecism is believed to have been derived from the town of Soloe in the same district. The Greek of Dioscorides is alleged to have been far from classical. He himself apologises for it in his preface, and Galen remarks upon it. Nevertheless Dioscorides maintained for at least sixteen centuries the premier position among authorities on materia medica. Galen complains that he was sometimes too indefinite in his description of plants, that he does not indicate exactly enough the diseases in which they are useful, and that he does not explain the degrees of heat, cold, dryness, and humidity which characterise them. He will often content himself with saying that a herb is hot or cold, as the case may be. As an illustration of one of his other criticisms Galen mentions the Polygonum, of which he notes that Dioscorides says “it is useful for those who urinate with difficulty.” But Galen adds that he does not particularise precisely the cases of which this is a symptom and which the Polygonum is good for. But these defects notwithstanding, Galen recognises that Dioscorides is the best authority on the subject of the materials of medicine.
It is generally stated that Dioscorides was a physician; but of this there is no certain evidence. According to his own account he was devoted to the study and observation of plants and medical substances generally, and in order to see them in their native lands he accompanied the Roman armies through Greece, Italy, and Asia Minor. This was the easiest method of visiting foreign countries in those days. It is not unlikely that he went as assistant to a physician, perhaps to the one to whom he dedicated his book. That is to say, he may have been an army compounder. Suidas says of him that he was nicknamed Phocas, because his face was covered with stains of the shape of lentils.
In his treatise on materia medica, “Peri Ules Iatrikes,” or, according to Photius, originally “Peri Ules,” On Matter, only, he describes some six hundred plants, limiting himself to those which had or were supposed to have medicinal virtues. He mentions, besides, the therapeutic properties of many animal substances. Among these are roasted grasshoppers, for bladder disorders; the liver of an ass for epilepsy; seven bugs enclosed in the skin of a bean to be taken in intermittent fever; and a spider applied to the temples for headache.
Dioscorides also gives a formula for the Sal Viperum, which was a noted remedy in his time and for long afterwards. His process was to roast a viper alive in a new earthen pot with some figs, common salt, and honey, reducing the whole to ashes. A little spikenard was added to the ashes. Pliny only adds fennel and frankincense to the viper, but Galen and later authors make the salt a much more complicated mixture.
His botany is very defective. He classifies plants in the crudest way; often only by a similarity of names. Of many his only description is that it is “well-known,” a habit which has got him into much trouble with modern investigators who have looked into his work for historical evidence verifying the records of herbs named in other works. Hyssop is an example. As stated in the section entitled “The Pharmacy of the Bible,” it has not been found possible to identify the several references to hyssop in the Bible. Dioscorides contents himself by saying that it is a well-known plant, and then gives its medicinal qualities. But that his hyssop was not the plant known to us by that name is evident from the fact that in the same chapter he describes the “Chrysocome,” and says of it that it flowers in racemes like the hyssop. He also speaks of an origanum which has leaves arranged like an umbel, similar to that of the hyssop. It is evident, therefore, that his hyssop and ours are not the same plant.
The mineral medicines in use in his time are also included in the treatise of Dioscorides. He mentions argentum vivum, cinnabar, verdigris, the calces of lead and antimony, flowers of brass, rust of iron, litharge, pompholix, several earths, sal ammoniac, nitre, and other substances.
Other treatises, one on poisons and the bites of venomous animals, and another on medicines easy to prepare, have been attributed to Dioscorides, but it is not generally accepted that he was the author. The best known translation of Dioscorides into Latin was made by Matthiolus of Sienna in the sixteenth century. The MS. from which Matthiolus worked is still preserved at Vienna and is believed to have been written in the sixth century.
The very competent authority Kurt Sprengel, while recognising the defects in the Materia Medica of Dioscorides, credits him with the record of many valuable observations. His descriptions of myrrh, bdellium, laudanum, asafoetida, gum ammoniacum, opium, and squill are selected as particularly useful; the accounts he gives of treatments since abandoned (some of which are mentioned above, but to these Sprengel adds the application of wool fat to wounds which has been revived since he wrote), are of special interest; and the German historian further justly points out that many remedies re-discovered in modern times were referred to by Dioscorides. Among these are castor oil, though Dioscorides only alludes to the external application of this substance; male fern against tape worms; elm bark for eruptions; horehound in phthisis; and aloes for ulcers. He describes many chemical processes very intelligently, and was the first to indicate means of discovering the adulterations of drugs.