Or elles an ague, that may be your bane.
A day or two ye shal han digestives
Of wormes, or ye take your laxatives,
Of laureole, centaurie, & fumetere,
Or elles of ellebor, that groweth there,
Of catapuce, or of gaitre-beries,
Or herbe ive growing in our yerd, that mery is;
Picke hem right as they grow, and ete hem in.’”
Chaucer has indicated for us, in his Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, who were the great medical authors studied by English physicians of the period.
Besides Æsculapius, whose works certainly could not have reached the “Doctour of Physicke,” he read Dioscorides, the famous writer on Materia Medica (A.D. 40-90). Rufus (of Ephesus, about A.D. 50). Old Hippocras = Hippocrates. Hali = Ali Abbas (died 994). Gallien = Galen. Serapion; there were two, the elder and the younger. Rasis = Rhazes (A.D. 850-923). Avicen = Avicenna (died 1170). Averriois = Averroes (died 1198). Damascene = Janus Damascenus, alias Mesue the elder (780-857). Constantin = Constantinus Africanus (1018-1085). Bernard = Bernardus Provincialis (about 1155). Gatisden = John of Gaddesden (about 1305). Gilbertin = Gilbert of England (about 1290).