Serapio. Yuhanná Ibn Sarapion.
Thebit Ben-Kora (otherwise Thabit Ibn Corrah). Abū Thabit Ibn Kurrah, Al Harrani.
[95] Page 34, line 38.: Page 34, line 40. electuarium de scoria ferri descriptum à Raze.—Rhazes or Rasis, whose Arabic name was Muhammad Ibn Zakarīyā, wrote De Simplicibus, ad Almansorem. In Chap. 63 of this work he gives a recipe for a stomachic, which includes fennel, anise, origanum, black pepper, cinammon, ginger, and iron slag. In the splendid folio work of Rhazes publisht at Venice in 1542, with the title Habes candide lector Continẽtem Rasis, Libri ultimi, cap. 295, under the heading De Ferro, are set forth the virtues of iron slag: "Virtus scorie est sicut virtus scorie [a]eris sed debilior in purgãdo: et erugo ferri est stiptica: et cũ superpositur retinet fluxus menstruorũ.... Ait Paulus: aqua in qua extinguitur ferrũ calens.... Dico: certificatus sum experientia q˜ valet contra emorryodas diabetem et fluxum menstruorum."
[96] Page 35, line 16.: Page 35, line 13. Paulus.—This is not Fra Paolo Sarpi, nor Marco Polo, nor Paulus Jovius the historian, nor Paulus Nicolettus Venetus, but Paulus Aeginæ.
[97] Page 35, line 29.: Page 35, line 28. Sed malè Avicenna.—The advice of Avicenna to administer a draught containing powdered loadstone, reads as follows in the Giunta edition (Venice, 1608):
Lib. ii., cap. 470, p. 356. "Magnes quid est? Est lapis qui attrahit ferrum, quum ergo aduritur, fit hæmatites, & virtus ejus est sicut virtus illius.... Datur in potu [ad bibitionem limaturæ ferri, quum retinetur in ventre scoria ferri. Ipse enim extrahit] ipsam, & associatur ei apud exitum. Et dicitur, quando in potu sumuntur ex eo tres anulusat cum mellicrato, educit solutione humorem grossum malum."
The passage is identical with that in the Venetian edition of 1486, in both of which the liquid prescribed is mellicratus—mead. Gilbert says that the iron is to be given in juice of mercurialis. Here he only follows Matthiolus, who, in his Commentaries on Dioscorides, says (p. 998 of the Basil. edition of 1598): "Sed (vt idem Auicenna scribit) proprium hujusce ferrei pharmaci antidotum, est lapis magnes drachmæ pondere potus, ex mercurialis, vel betæ succo."
Serapio, in his De Simplicibus Medicinis (Brunfels' edition, Argentorati, 1531), p. 264, refers to Galen's prescription of iron scoriæ, and under the article de lapide magnetis, p. 260, quotes Dioscorides as follows: "Et uirtus huius lapidis est, ut quãdo dantur in potu duo onolosat ex eo cũ melicrato, laxat humores grossos."
The original passage in Dioscorides, De Materia Medica, ch. 147 (Spengel's edition of 1829) runs: "Τοῦ δὲ μαγνήτου λίθου ἄριστός ἐστιν ὁ τὸν σίδηρον εὐχερῶς ἕλκων, καὶ τὴν χρόαν κυανίζων, πυκνός τε κὰι οὐκ ἄγαν βαρύς. Δύναμιν δὲ ἔχει πάχους ἀγωγὸν διδόμενος μετὰ μελικράτου τριωβόλου βάρος· ἔνιοι δὲ τοῦτον καίοντες ἀντὶ αἱματίτου πιπράσκουσιν.."
In the Frankfurt edition of Dioscorides, translated by Ruellius (1543), the passage is: