Dioscorides, Pedanius

Hippocrates mentioned elder as a purgative around 400 B.C. Pliny (circa 2379 A.D.) recorded the use of elder by the Romans. Pedanius Dioscorides, a first-century army surgeon who traveled throughout the Roman Empire, also wrote about the medical value of elder. Elder was widely used in the early Italian medical schools. 

Henbane is a biennial herb growing wild in Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa, and cultivated in several other countries (Robbers et al. 1996). The ancient Egyptians mention its use in the Ebers Papyrus, written circa 1500 B.C.E. (Shultes and Hofman 1992). It was also mentioned in writings by the ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides for its medicinal uses. It has been suggested that the Oracle of Delphi inhaled smoke from henbane seeds to induce a prophetic trance. The plant is poisonous to livestock animals, as indicated by its common name henbane, and by its botanical name hyoscyamus, meaning "hog bean."... 

Pedanius Dioscorides, 40-90 ce Greek pharmacologist and physician in the time of Nero who wrote De Materia Medica, the basis for the modem pharmacopeia that was used until 1600 ce. 

Following the work of Nicander, which included the beginnings of a scheme for identifying toxic agents by means of the symptoms they produce in human victims, a system of toxicology was developed between the second century bc and the first century ad. The Roman naturalist and historian Pliny the Elder (23/24-79 ad) described the biological effects of poisonous plants and animals in his Historia Naturalis. A contemporary, Pedanius Dioscorides, developed a classification scheme for poisons based... 

The analgesic properties of willow tree bark, from which salicylic acid comes, have been known for well over 3,500 years. They were first described in Egyptian scrolls dating to about 1550 and were later recommended by a number of ancient authorities, including the famous Greek physician Hippocrates (c. 460-370 ), the Roman encyclopedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus (c. 10 -date of death unknown), the Roman philosopher Pliny the Elder (23 ce-ce), and the Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides (40-90 ce). 

Porta s book Magia Naturalis, first published in 1558, a compendium of pop ular science, was reprinted for over 100 years A mixture of technical information and misinformation, it cites the procedure of the Greek physician and pharmacist Pedanius Dioscorides (ca 40-ca 90 A D ) for heating antimony" [really stibnite—see Saturn and the wolf in Figure 38(a)] into lead despite the fact that sixteenth-century practitioners knew they were different and could not be so in-terconverted Magia Naturalis includes a preparation of a cosmetic that will produce spots (a kind of fade-in cream for women)—a bit of Renaissance fraternity house humor perhaps ... 

Palma 1964 Watt and Breyer-Brandwijk 1962). The ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides wrote that shepherd s purse "moves the menstrual and destroys the embrya," an early observation of some of the physiological activity reported above (Dioscorides 512). 

One of the most important herbal books in history is the ve-volume book De Materia Medica, written by the Greek physician and botanist Pedanius Dioscorides (ca. 40-90), who practiced in ancient Rome. In the course of his numerous travels all over the Roman and Greek world seeking for medicinal plants, he described more than 500 medicinal plants and respective remedies. His treatise, which may be considered a precursor of modern pharmacopoeias, was later translated into a variety of languages. Dioscorides, as well as his contemporary Plirty the Elder (23-79), a Roman natural historian, mention besides other facts turpentine oil and give some limited information on the methods in its preparation. 

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