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[German version] ( klystḗr/ klystḗrion, Lat. clyster/ clysterium; also klŷsma/ klysmós and éngklysma, derived from klýzein/ engklýzein, Lat. inicere: to pour, to rinse, and enetḗr/ énema, from: eniénai: to inject) or clyster: pharmaceutical substance of, and device for, administering parenteral (in this case, often in combination with the adverb kátō or the verb hypoklýzein) or (in gynaecological treatises) vaginal injections of therapeutic solutions. The instrument consisted of a flexible and compressible container (animal skin or bladder) with two opening…

[German version] Medical analysis of the urine (οὖρον/ oû ron, Latin urina) of a sick person for diagnosis (or  prognosis). Ancient sources: the Corpus Hippocraticum (Hippocrates [6]; Hippoc. Aphorismi 4,69-73; Hippoc. Prognosticon 12; also the comm. by Galen 17,2,750-763 and 18,2,146-165), Rufus [5] of Ephesus ( De renum et vesicae affectionibus) respectively, Galen (De crisibus 9,594-607), the Corpus Galenicum (De urinis 19,574-601; De urinis compendium 19,602-608; De urinis ex Hippocrate et Galeno 19,609-628; De signis ex urinis [1]) and the encyclo…

[German version] Greek doctor from Cappadocia who practiced in Rome. He explained his medication-based therapy, dated to between 100 BC and AD 40, in a treatise that has been dated [1. 242-246] to between 20 BC and AD 20. The recipes, which characteristically tend to be composite, indicate a late date. H.'s origin and the classicism of his medical material suggest an association with the ‘School of Tarsus’ [2], as it may be called, or at least permit classification with the current that it represents. Apart from a papyrus fragment [3], we have 25 quotes in Galen, of which 20 ap…

[German version] (κράσις/ krásis, Latin mixtio, 'mixture'; complexio, temperatio, temperamentum). Medical term (in physiology, pathology and pharmacology). Continuing the theories of the first Greek philosophers concerning nature (Natural philosophy), especially on the four elements (Elements, theories of) together with their qualities, krásis describes the 'mixture' of materials and thus of specific characteristics which are individually constitutive for the psychology of every subject (e.g. Emp. 31 B 6,96 DK). In the ancient humoral …

[German version] (Κρατεύας; Krateúas). Rhizotómos ‘root-cutter’, ‘herb man’; [6. test. 7 and 8]) of the 2nd/1st cent. BC. He was assumed to be the pharmacologist of  Mithridates VI Eupator simply because he is attributed with assigning the name of mithridátia (6. test. 2) to a plant, although there is no proof for it in the phytonymy. It was also assumed that he went to Thapsus [3. 1644], but this was a mistake since the fr. in question [6. test. 16] points to Sicily [1; 2. 206, 529 and appendix]. The portrait of the Codex Vindob. med. gr. 1, f. 3v has been regarded as authentic [5. 1139.6…

[German version] (Μητροδῶρα; Mētrodôra). According to the manuscript Flor. Laur. 75,3 (12th cent. AD), the author of surviving extracts under the title ‘Diseases of the Womb (Περὶ γυναικείων παθῶν τῆς μήτρας). Although M. has been identified with various male or female physicians, his/her identity remains unknown, even enigmatic. It is possible that M. never existed, if the name ( mētròs dôra, ‘gifts of the mother’) really is only an erroneous interpretation of the title of a collection of advice given to young women of marriageable age by their mothers. The text, which is based on …

[German version] Alexandrian doctor, lived between the time of Herophilus (330/320-260/250 BC), whose successor he was, and Apollonius (1st cent. BC), by whom he is cited; generally he is placed in the 2nd cent. BC because of his polemics against the  Empiricists and their views on aetiology. Of his works only indirect citations are extant, of which three bear his name, and the last (Gal. Def. med. 220 = 19,448f. K.) was merely attributed to him [1. 73 n. 44; 137 n. 183; 2]. Fragment 3 comes from a work Perì aitíōn (‘On the causes’) in which H. refutes the aetiological nihilism of th…

[German version] A. Definition Iatromathēmatiká (Herm. 1,387,1 Ideler) or nosoúntōn perignostiká ek tês mathēmatikês epistḗmēs (ibid. 1,430,2-3) etc. is the term for the medical implications of astrology, i.e. the recognition of a nosological predisposition of patients or a prognosis of current illnesses, connected with prevention or therapy, depending on the case. Touwaide, Alain (Madrid) [German version] B. Sources The books on which iatromathematics is based are the alleged revelations of  Hermes, who was possibly assisted by Asclepius. These revela…

Touwaide, Alain (Madrid) I. Europe (CT) [German version] A. Early Middle Ages (CT) The practice of post-Classical curative art is characterised by six tendencies that complement or follow upon one another: 1. The fundamental texts survived in their original Greek version at least until the 5th-6th cent. (Dioscurides). Some were presumably translated into Latin during the same period at Rome or Ravenna (Hippocrates, Peri diaites, Oribasius, Synopsis and Euporista) or else in North Africa (Dioscurides). There were also new Greek texts from Constantinople (Dioscu…

[German version] Therapeutic intervention in human and veterinary medicine, consisting of the causing of a ‘burn’ on the surface of the body using two different techniques with their respective indications: a burn in the actual sense by means of an iron made red-hot on coals, then by means of a lamp-wick ( mýkēs, e.g. Hippoc. De internis affectionibus 212,14 L.); it was used to make the tissue contract. In this way it was said that a mechanical repair of fractures was achieved [3. 164-165], or in the case of a poisonous bite or sting, the poison …

[German version] (φυσιογνωμονία/ physiognōmonía, Lat. physiognomia). Within ancient psychology, physiognomy represented a set of techniques, assessing a person's personality and character through the observation of physical characteristics and behaviour (Ps.-Aristot. Physiognom. 6-7). Extant sources: the treatise Physiognōmoniká, attributed to Aristotle [6], but probably originating from the Peripatos and the 3rd cent. BC; based on this, Polemon's [6] treatise, written between AD 133 and 136, of which a fragment and an Arabic tran…

[German version] Helvius V., 4th-century AD physician, of African origin, teacher of Theodorus [3] Priscianus. V. had - probably in 382 - contacts with Augustinus. He concluded his political career with a proconsulship in Africa, where, after being comes archiatrorum presumably in 379, he worked as a physician. V. is mentioned in the Codex Theodosianus (Cod. Theod. 10,19,9: AD 378; 13,3,12: 379). V. wrote several treatises influenced by Greek medicine, today lost apart from forewords ( praefationes) or fragments: (1) a collection of recipes, of which only the Epistula ad Valentinia…

CH Greek Latin name Main areas of use in antiquity Modern medical Identification Common Diosc. Plin. HN (*1) (*2) name (*3) (selection) (*4) properties (*5) (*6) name (*7) (*8) 1 87 smýrna balsamum, myrrha 69 + 18 (ophthalmology , wound treatment) ? Commiphora abyssinica Engl. Myrrh 1,64 12,66-71 2 72 kýminon cuminum 51 + 21 (stomach complaints , fever) adstringent, peptogenic, emmenagogic, lactogenic, stomachic Cuminum cyminum L. Cumin 3,59 20,159-162 3 63 helléboros elleborum, elleborus 16 + 47 (consumption , purification , hydropsy , rheumatism) Veratrum album: antirheumatic, H.…

[German version] (ἰός/ iós and φάρμακον/ phármakon sc. δηλητήριον/ dēlētḗrion, lat. virus and venenum). Poisons were not distinguished according to their origin (animal or plant), but according to the manner in which they were introduced to the body: inoculation (sting: πληγή/ plēgḗ, ictus; bite: δάκος/ dákos, morsus) or oral absorption (πόσις/ pósis, potus); common to all is the definition of a substance affecting the organism. Starting with the Epic Cycle, there is documentary evidence of animal and plant poisons as well as plants with magical or respectively h…

[German version] (Φιλούμενος; Philoúmenos). Author of a treatise on poisonings (Περὶ ἰοβόλων ζῴων καὶ τῶν ἐν αὐτοῖς βοηθημάτων, 'On poisonous animals and medicines extracted from them') that has only been passed down to us in the MS Vat. Gr. 284 (10th cent. AD). P.'s period of writing in any case later than Galenus - the work is structured following the model of the latter's treatise on toxicology - and it must have appeared before that of Oribasius who quotes him, i.e. it must be dated to the 2nd …

[German version] (Ὀρειβάσιος/ Oreibásios or Oribasios/Ὀριβάσιος). Greek doctor and author of medical treatises, b. around AD 320 in Pergamum, d. around AD 390/400 in an unknown location. After studying in Alexandria, O., who was not a Christian, returned to Pergamum. Once there, he practised medicine and gained an outstanding reputation as a doctor as well as a highly cultured man. He was a friend of the future emperor Iulianus [11], whom he had got to know possibly during Julian’s stay in Pergamum…

[German version] (Πετρωνᾶς, Petronâs often abbrev. to: Πέτρων, Pétrōn). Greek physician from Aegina, datable by the information that Ariston was his pupil (Anth. Pal. 546F); this Ariston is regarded as the author of the Hippocratic treatise Perì diaítēs ( De diaeta acutorum) dated to c. 400 BC, and Galen calls him παλαιός ('ancient') (CMG 9,1, 135,4). Although Celsus [7] places P. between Hippocrates and the Hellenistic physicians (3,9,2), P.'s medical views, which according to the Anonymus Londinensis (20,1) place him partly in associati…

[German version] [1] From Megara, teacher in Selymbria, 5th cent. BC Paidotribḗs from Megara who settled in Selymbria, contemporary of Protagoras. His birth was estimated to around 500 BC [2. 200f.] and his death in old age to around 430-420 [5. 53]. After Plato had attributed to him the development of a new form of therapy, he was regarded as the author of a small work [1. 979, l. 21f.] despite the absence of any evidence that he had written anything at all or even, despite Anon. Londiniensis IX, 20-36, that he had an explicit, elabo…

[German version] 1st-century AD medical school. Its representatives explicitly defined themselves as Methodists (μεθοδικοί; methodikoí), as it was their goal to base the practice of medicine on a single simple method (μέθοδος; méthodos) that they could teach to anyone in just a few words. Extant are only the gynaecological treatise of Soranus,a Latin translation of his pathological writings by Caelius [II 11] Aurelianus and doxographic fragments, e.g. POxy. 3654 [1. 382-386, 388-390], probably a medical textbook from the time of Galenus. …

[German version] Renaissance title of a Latin book of formulae, based largely on the Medicina Plinii and written in the 5th/6th cents. AD. There are three recensions: 1. Sangallensis (6th/7th cents.) in three books (not yet published; titles of the chapters: [6. 41-55]; contains numerous incantations [5]); 2. Bambergensis [3], dated to the 5th/6th cents., but possibly more recent, and divided into three books; 3. Florentino-Pragensis [11; 10; 7] in five books (including the Medicinae ex oleribus et pomis of Gargilius [4] Martialis and the Liber dietarum diversorum medicorum by …