Science and magic in Galen's recipes

REYSER, WOT : SCIENCE AND MAGIC IN GALEN’S RECIPES (SYMPATHY AND EFFICACY) PAUL T. Keyser Introduction Magic may be usefully defined as ‘excluded practices depending for their effect on forces or powers in the world beyond human understanding’. The contrast is at once with technology : ‘accepted practices based on powers within human understanding’, and with religion : ‘accepted practices depending on powers beyond human understanding’. What we label as magic are those acts which lie outside: outside our ken and outside the pale -.that.whichis both taboo and mystery. Whatis labelled magic will therefore depend on who is labelling (Roman Catholics do not consider Transubstantiation to be magic, parapsychologists do not consider ExtraSensory Perception to be magic). There is thus an opening for cognitive dissonancein studying early medical practices. Modern re readers of Pliny, e.g., are. struck by his firm rejection of magic (AN. 30.1-20) coupled with his approval of (or at least failure to-exclude) practices we would regard as clearly magical (HN. 20-27). Moreover, Pliny himself reports native Roman magic with approval (HN. 28.10-34). Thus the same sort of cognitive dissonance exists not only between ancient and modern, but within a single ancient author. ' Cp. Nachman Ben-Yehuda, ‘Witcheraft and the Occult as Boundary Maintenance Devices’, in Jacob Neusner, E. S. Frerichs, and P. V, McG, Flesher (eds.), Religion, Science, and Magic : In Concert and Conflict, New York/ Oxford, Oxford U. Press, 1989, 229-60, summarizing the results in Nachman Ben-Yehuda, Deviance and Moral Boundaries: Witchcraft, the Occult, Science Fiction, Deviant Sciences and Scientists, Chicago, Chicago U. Press, 1985. * E.g.: FIN 20,29 (ritual for the use of the marsh-mallow), 20.171 (charm against cockroaches and scorpions), 20.254 (ointinent for blindness), 22.39 (scorpion plant as a charm against scorpions), 22.52 (spitting the bugloss plant at serpents slays them), 22.135 (ritual to cure carbuncles), 23.103 and 26.26 (amulets for scrofula), 23.110 (ritual against eye-trouble), 24.12 (gathering mistletoe), 24.63 (charm against chafing), 25.164 (amulet of purslane prevents scorpion stings), 26,1 12-9 (the magical plant uettoniea [betony]), and 26.150 (amulet of artemisia averts fatigue).

In fact, both Pliny and Galen claimed that they were recording rational recipes, and based that claim, at least in part, on allegedly experimental validations of efficacy. Yet to most readers, Pliny ence, (The example he gives there concerns the design and testing of a sundial.) The same sorts of claims are advanced by Galen specifically of his pharmacy in the three works to be considered here (in chronoseems an uncritical compiler of stuff and nonsense, while his co-eval Dioscorides, and Galen as well, seem distinctly more rational. Indeed there is a tendency to view Greek medicine as wholly rational and free of all such contaminants as magic.* In fact the picture is considerably more complex than that, and even Galen can be found agreeing that at least one amulet he hasobserved did work_ (De simpl. med. fac. 6.10 |11.859-60 K.]).* Already in the Hippocratic corpus péyog/payin is used not of a fixed set of practices, but of what the writer disapproves — the foreign connotations no doubt were part of the attack (Morb. Sacr. 2-4 [6.354-64 L.]). And although 177 logical order : Mixing and Powers of Simples = De simpl. med. fac.. Composition of Medicines According to Types = De comp. med. per gen., and Composition of Medicines According to Places = De comp. med. sec. loc.) First, in De simpl. med. fac. \.1-2 (11.379-84 K.), Galen claims that —iè:.; ARS each drug has within it some natural faculty or power (Sivapig), whether of cooling or heating, or whatever it might be, and that this power can be known through the senses."{As he turns to the alphabetical list of simples, he rejects incantations, amulets, and all that magical apparatus as ineffective, foolish, and to be excluded (De the author of Sacred Disease inveighs against his opponents’ medical practices as being ineffective, his own dietary ‘cure’ for epilepsy is just as spurious. And what he excludes as not possibly useful against simpl. med. fac. 6 pr. [11.792-3 K.]).)He repeats his insistence that cither reason or experience are sufficient to learn about the reguany disease, ablutions, are of course in fact effective preventative measures against a host of infectious diseases. (Ironically, he is thus hoist by his own petard.) med. per gen. 6.7 [13.886-7 K.]). As he moves on to medicines for specific body parts (De comp. med. sec. loc. 1.1 [12.378-9 K.]), he insists that the affected part and the nature of the disease itself indi- And Galen himself makes the claim of a rational, ‘scientific’ method with respect to his general method of enquiry in several places. Early in his oeuvre, in On Medical Experience 1 and 31 (85-6 and 153-4 Walzer), also in De meth, med. 1.3.14-15 (10.28-30 K.), and in the later On Errors of the Soul 5 (De pecc. dignot. 5 [CMG V 4.1.1, pp. 54-62 = 5.80-93 K.]), he repeats this claim. In the early cate sufficiently the remedy to be applied." Finally, it is nature herself who gives us reason and experience, the necessary and sufficient passage, he is primarily concerned with validating the role of experience in medical practice, without eliminating a corresponding crucial role for reason. In the Method of Healing, he is in the first instance larities of nature as seen in the use of plants as medicines (De comp. instruments of judgment (De comp. med. sec. loc. 8.1 [13.116-7 K.)). Despite that however, there is an important core or residuum of practice and assumptions which Galen will (of course) not call magical, since he includes it, but which we may fairly connect with what he does call magic. That connection may be made for two reasons — that to us the ideas in question are in fact excluded from science, and that for Galen’s contemporaries, the ideas in question were considered as part of magic. This is the complex of ideas gathered attacking the ‘Methodist’ followers of Thessalos, but as he does so, he advocates also his own position, that either reason or experience must be a criterion of truth. And lastly, in On Errors, he is of course under the heading ovurábera, an important concept for Pliny, c.g. (ELN. 24.1-5). Moreover, like the Hippocratic writer of Sacred Disease, propounding a rational approach to questions in philosophy, espewho does not reject all traditional beliefs,’ Galen adopts the bulk of cially those regarding cthics. However, in giving examples he insists that the results of any theoretical enquiry be confirmed by experihis recipes from numerous carlier writers." This is because they * Ludwig Edelstein, ‘Greek Medicine in its Relation ta Religion and Magic’, Bulletin of the Institute of the History of Medicine 5 (1937) 201-46, repr. in O. ‘Temkin and C. L. Temkin (eds.), Ancient Medicine : Selected papers of Ludwig Edelstein, Baltimore/ London, Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1967, pp. 205-246. u 'G. E. R. Lloyd, Magic, Reason, and Experience : Studies in the Origin and A Development of Greek Science, Cambridge, Cambridge U. Press, 1979, pp. 10-58. Cp. also De comp. med. per gen. 1.2 (13.367-71 K.). “Cp. De comp. med. sec. loc. 2.1 (12.501 K.) : tov pèv yap kaBékou Tig idcews oxondv Exdotov tüv nodav d Adyos Huds diódoxer, Tag SE tig Ans Öuvaneıc il reipa, " Cp. Lloyd (supra, n. 4) pp. 29-32 on Herodotos, 39-40 on Sacred Disease itself, and 41-6 on other Ilippokratic authors, * Cajus Fabricius, Galens Exzerpte aus älteren Pharmakologen, Ars Medica 2, Berlin-New York, de Gruyter, 1972, pp. 41-55,

amount to accumulated zgipa, as he notes, De comp. med. sec. loc. 7.4 (13.75K.).” Certain earlier writers known to Galen, such as Manuas, Heraclides of Taras, Heras, and Andromachos, were guarantors of the experience that their recipes worked : De comp. med. per gen. 2,5 179 monly known as St. Barnaby’s-thistle (in the American West as ‘yucca’) and the stalks are eaten boiled while the flowers are used medicinally ; the Ephedra is of course the woody horse-tail, and the source of ephedrine (now produced artificially as pseudephedrine).'* Every literate culture region provides evidence for herbals from (13.502-3 K.). the earliest literate umes. Three examples will suflice for all. In Mesopotamia, by the early Sumerian period, herbal recipes are Deep Backgrounds recorded as remedies.!* “he remedies are drunk (the herbs being brayed into beer), applied as poultices, or even rubbed onto the skin The backgrounds of Galen’s attitude and of his practice are very deep. It is important to review these in order better to sce just where Galen stands, and how that stance can be both magical and at the affected spot. This Sumerian practice, like so many others, was taken over by the Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia, who continued to use many of the same ingredients and mixtures.'® For Egypt we are not as well provided with pharmaccutical information, rational. Even animals make use of herbal remedies — there is the famous tale in Theophrastos about goats eating dittany to expel arrows (HP 9.16), which perhaps only Pliny (HN. 25.92) ever believed. But in fact another species of our genus homo, the chimpanzee," does medicate itself herbally for diarrhea, at least (using a species of Vernonia),"" and for other illnesses with species of Asprha." We know that the Neanderthals living in Northern Iraq at Shanidar Cave, about 60,000 years ago, made use of Achillea sp., Centaurea sp., Ephedra sp., etc. Large quantities of their pollens were discovered in a burial, and the flowers had clearly been placed there deliberately at that time." The particular species found include but it is clear from the data available that there too drugs were sought and used, Late in Egyptian history Homer records the fame of Egyptian vnnevöng (Od. 4.221). The few surviving Egyptian medical papyri include the Ebers papyrus which offers a large number of recipes, the principle of whose composition escapes us.!” The text (dating to ca. 1500 B.C.) contains recipes side by side with incantations and charms, sometimes prefaced with diagnoses (a list of symptoms followed by a statement of cause or at least name),'* Often the plants cannot now be identified. For China, the earliest herbal is much later, the Pen-Ts’ao (herbal) attributed to Shennung (a legendary ideal bucolic of the fourth century B.C.) ; the carliest some with small bright flowers and others whose flowers are not to our eyes especially inviting : beauty of sight or scent may or may not have been the motivation. Many of the plants represented have however a medicinal use in the local traditions. The Achillea is widely used, and is known in English as yarrow ; the Centaurea is comCp, also De comp. med. per gen. 2.5 (13.502 K.). 5 Michel Civil, ‘Préscriptions médicales Sumeriennes’, Rane d'Assyriologie 54 | The Third Chimpanzee, n For that les ho nl see Jared M. Diamond, | | 9 New York, Harper-Collins, 1992, pp. 15-31. !! Michael A. Huffman and Mohamedi Seifu, ‘Observations on the Illness and Consumption of a Possibly Medicinal Plant Vernonia amygdalina (Del.), by a Wild Chimpanzee in the Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania’, Primates 30 (1989) 51-63. | 7 | 2R, W. Wrangham and 'T, Nishida, ‘Aspilia spp. Leaves : A Puzzle in the i Feeding Behavior of Wild Chimpanzees’, Primates 24 (1983) 276-82. 5 Arlette Leroi-Gourhan, ‘Le Néanderthalien IV de Shanidar’, Bulletin de la Société Préhistorique Française : Comptes rendus des séances mensuelles 65 (1968) 79-83. rhey were present in very large quantities and in clusters : not consistent with windblown deposition. (Such species do not grow in caves either, as some have suggested.) "Ralph Solecki, Shanidar : ‘The Humanity of Neanderthal Man, London, The Penguin Press, 1971, pp. 173-8, pl. 19. Althea sp. pollen was also found in large quantities, but not in clusters ; as hollyhock it is widely used as an analgesic. On the medicinal uses of Achillea, Althea, and Ephedra (listed as Eguisetum), sce Richard LeStrange, A History of Herbal Plants, London, Angus and Robertson, 1977, pp. 4-6, 16-18, and 109-10. (1960) 57-72 ; Samuel Noah Kramer, “The World’s Oldest Known Prescriptions’, CIBA Joumal 12 (1959) 16-21 ; Samuel Noah Kramer, ‘First Pharmacopeia in man’s recorded history’, American Journal of Pharmacy 126 (1954) 76-84, FR, Campbell Thompson, The Assyrian Herbal, London, Luzac and Co., 1924 ; Martin Levey, ‘Some objective factors of Babylonian medicine in the light of new evidence’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 35 (1961) 61-70, PE, A. Wallis Budge, Divine Origin of the Craft of the Herbalist, London, Society of Herbalists, 1928, pp. 26-35. The text is transliterated, translated, and commented by H. Grapow, Grundriss der Medizin der Alten Ägypter, vol. 4 and 5, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1958. Grapow rearranges the text by modern medical categories (all recipes dealing with worms, e.g., from P. Ebers and the other medical texts, are gathered). For the Ebers papyrus itself, simply translated, see Bendix Ebbell, The Papyrus Ebers, the Greatest Egyptian Medical Document, Copenhagen, Munksgaard, 1937.

extant herbal is that from the third century B.C., a fragmentary text on silk recording 170 prescriptions for 52 illnesses." The carliest extant complete herbals date from ca. A.D. 225, and employ a principle of cosmic harmony to specify drugs. There arc 365 drugs corresponding to the days of the year, divided into yin and JUNE, and reacting with one another according to one of seven emotions : their ‘combination must conform strictly to these principles.” Drugs possess one of the five tastes and one of the four degrees of temperature. In common with the Egyptian and Mesopotamian traleast the scientific practice of giving numerical proportions in the drug compositions.” No doubt all such practices were traditional in the sense that they had evolved slowly - an evolution accelcrated and amplified by observation. Natural selection must have played her usual role, midwifing the survival of drug-uses which worked, or at least did no harm, and the co-eval passing away of deleterious drug-uses. At this stage, theory seems an epiphenomenon — practice a chaotic pragmatism. ditions, diseases were imagined to be caused by evil spirits, who could be driven out with certain drugs. Later, drug-lore was integrated firmly into the Five Phases cycle (analogous to the Greek Empedoklean Four Roots or Elements)’ 181 Greek Background The earliest Greek records show a similar use of herbal drugs : A. One may note in these three traditions some features parallel to the Greek herbal tradition. The efficacy of many Egyptian and Mesopotamian drugs seems to derive from their names — that is, efficacy derived from puns (as in Plato’s Cratylus).” This is of course not surprising in languages ordinarily written with puns (recall that Sumerian and Egyptian were originally pictographic, later writing unpicturable words using puns).” The divine source or origin of drugs scems to be, as Budge long ago noted, a theme of early medicine in Egypt? but is also found in Mesopotamia,” and even China (where the ‘divine’ discoverers are usually interpreted as divinized ancestors).% This is paralleled in the legend in Homer that Hermes gave Odysseus the uöAv plant (Od. 10.302-6), as well as in Pliny’s paean on the divinely providential origin of herbal medicines (HN. 27.1-3). In the third place, one ought to note the scientific practice of testing drugs (on slaves) employed already in the seventh century B.C. by the Assyrian king Esarhaddon,” and for Egypt at 4.191, 218, 5.900, 11.844-8, etc. ‘The locus of the knowledge was the famous piCotdpo1.” The earliest Greek writer on plants known to us is Menestor of Sybaris, a Pythagorean (DK® 32), who seems to have had a theory that plant properties derive from their degree of heat/cold (Theophrastos, CP 1.21.5-7 preserves the only significant fragment). The Hippocratic corpus (better : cycle) prefers diet to drugs, and such drugs as are used are mainly evacuants of one exit or the other.” Although no Hippocratic herbal as such exists (and probably never existed), over two hundred different plants are mentioned in the corpus as having medicinal use." Drugs are rarely mentioned in the case books (Epidemics), probably because they formed part of the diet for the most part,” but one must keep in mind that the Epidemics are clearly selected cases (and the criteria of selection may have included such statements as ‘diseases so severe that drugs mattered not’). The various writers specify plants without description, in contrast to, say, Theophrastos’ specifications ; they also never mention any of the ‘magical’ practices associated Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China : A History of Pharmaceutics, Berkeley, U. of California Press, 1986, pp. 11-16. Adad-shum-usur : Robert H. Pfeiffer, State Letters of Assyria, American Oriental 20 Unschuld (supra, n. 19) 17, 19. 2! Unschuld (supra, n. 19) 25-7. | | 2 Georges Contenau, La Magie chez les Assyriens et les Babyloniens, Paris, Payot, 1947, pp. 127-40, 209-223, Paul Ghalioungui, Magic and Medical Science in Ancient Egypt, London, Hodder and Stoughton, 1963, pp. 22-5, 35, 142-4 (sec. | ed, Amsterdam, Israél, 1973, pp. 5-8, 18, 140-1). 23 In English one might write ‘belie? using pictures of a bee and of a leaf. 4 Budge (supra, n. 17) 24-5. 3 Cp. the tree-of-life plant given by the gods to Gilgamesh and stolen by the serpent : Contenan (supra, n. 22) 190-1. 26 Unschuld (supra, n. 19) 11-13. with many herbs, which Theophrastos records.” | | | 2 Ruled 681 to 668 B.C. ; his tests are recorded in a letter to Esarhaddon from Series, vol. 6, New Haven, American Oriental Society, 1935, p. 204 (# 294). # John E. Nunn, Ancient Egyptian Medicine, Norman OK, U. of Oklahoma Press, 1996, pp. 140-3. TM (>, E. R. Lloyd, Science, Folklore, and Ideology : Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece, Cambridge, Gambridge U. Press, 1983, pp. 120-35. “Jerry Stannard, ‘Hippocratic Pharmacology’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 35 (1961) 497-518 ; Peter Brain, ‘The Hippocratic Physician and his Drugs’, CP 77 (1982) 48-51. " Gollected by J. H. Dierbach, Die Arzneimittel des Hippokrates, Heidelberg, Groos, 1824, He lists 213 plants (of which ca. 50 to 70 are ‘food’ items of one sort or another), plus 68 resins, minerals, etc. (also water, milk, and honey). 2 As Stannard (supra, n. 30) 510-3 argues. 3 Lloyd (supra, n. 29) 126-35.

PAUL T. KEYSER Hippocratic and other Greek medicine included treatments by relatively lesser degree than dictetic methods, but no rigid distincthree sorts of healers. There were the naturalistic intpoi of the who seem to have used similar means, validated by visions.* And tion can be drawn, as so many of the herbal remedies were to some degree food plants. And finally, in Hippocrates and Theophrastos one notes a tendency to reject or avoid folkloristic practices (collection rituals, etc.), while relying on the folkloristic data about drugs’ third, although often denied, it is clear that there existed healers effects.” who made use of what Edelstein portrays as religious rationalism or Herophilos of Chalcedon, the bold provincial famed for vivisection, is also known for his aphorism that ‘drugs are the hands of the Hippocratic treatises, who emphasized regimen and resorted when necessary to drugs and surgery. There were the priests of Asklepios rationalistic supernaturalism,“ and who made use of charms (éxaot- (ca. 340 B.C.).” The earliest work of which we can form any gods’.*' (Galen approves, so long as they are properly used : De comp. med. sec. loc. 6.8 [12.965-7 K.].) Drugs were, according to Herophilos, to be tested by use and experience ; most of his prescriptions were still simples, though compounds play a larger role than formerly. His followers, the Herophileans, preserved this interest of his from the middle of the third century B.C. to the middle impression is by Theophrastos (HP 9, ca. 297 B.C.).* This includes of the first century A.D.” a number of herbal drugs which would have effects more or less as The neopythagorean Bölos of Mendes, writing as ‘Demokritos’, composed the earliest book of alchemy around 200 B.C. : he also wrote a book on plants in which he claimed to find evidence of a ovyróBera between different plants, and between certain plants and other parts of nature.” This doctrine was used to justify claims of efficacy for which there could be no simple or physical explanation - plant and animal substances had powers in medicine (and elsewhere) which could be deduced from this totalizing principle, rather than from experience. Pliny 24.160-6 lists a number of Bölos’ plants Sai) and purifications (xadapuoí) in addition to dietary regimen.” The boundaries between these practices were porous, and the same patient might consult one of each ; the same drug might be prescribed by each. The earliest Greek herbal known is the now lost work of Diocles claimed, plus a number of euthanasic potions, and some extraordinary tales. Theophrastos recognized that herbal effects could vary with the part of the plant, season of collection, and the particular patient.” As noted, he provides (in the earlier books of the HP) careful descriptions and distinctions of the plants (in contrast to the relatively off-hand references in Hippocrates). On the other hand, in Characters 16.2, 10, 14, Theophrastos describes the magico-religious use of plants by the superstitious man. A few summary remarks on the pharmacy of this period of Greek medicine are possible. One notes first the use by preference for simples, that is, the relative avoidance of complex mixtures (in contrast to Egypuan, Mesopotamian, and Chinese practice). and their magic. The next stage in the development of Greek pharmacy was the polypharmacy of ‘theriac’, known especially from the poems of Nicander of Colophon (ca. 180 to ca. 136 B.C.).'* No doubt Nonetheless, when mixtures are prescribed, proportions are given {as in the Egyptian recipes). Drugs seemed to have been used to a “John M. Riddle, ‘Folk Tradition and Folk Medicine : Recognition of Drugs in Classical Antiquity’, in John Scarborough (ed.), Folklore and Folk Medicines, madison, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1987, pp. 33-61 (repr. as # XIV in Quid pro Quo : Studies in the history of drugs, Brookfield, WT, Ashgate, “ Pindar, Pyth. 3.51-3 refers to Asklepian treatment by drugs and surgery, and by charms and amulets, Cp. the scene in Aristophanes, Plutus 653-747. See Lloyd and Hampshire, Variorum, 1992). (supra, n. 29) 40-1. Cambridge U. Press, 1989. See also the preface of Scribonius Largus. Edelstein (supra, n. 3) (1967) 208-19. TM Cp. even Sophokles, Rhizotomoi as preserved in Macrobius, Satumalia 5.19.910, See Lloyd (supra, n. 29) 40, 44. # Max Wellmann, ‘Die älteste Kräuterbuch der Griechen’, in Festgabe für Franz Susemihl, Leipzig, Teubner, 1898, repr. Aalen, Scientia, 1985, pp. 1-31. % John Scarborough, “Theophrastus on Herbals and Herbal Remedies’, Journal of the History of Biology 11 (1978) 353-85. "Lloyd (supra, n. 29) 125, | "T248-9 in Heinrich von Staden, Herophilus of Chalcedon. Cambridge. "von Staden (supra, n. 41) 400-1, 450-1, '3 Max Wellmann, Die Georgika des Demokritos, Abhandlungen der Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philologisch-Historische Klasse, 1921, 2 (1954) 502-8 ; W. Burkert, no. 4, see esp. pp. 21-22 ; J. H. Waszink, “Bolos”, RAC ‘Hellenistische pseudo-pythagorica’, Philologus 105 (1961) 16-43, 226-46. "See A. S. F. Gow and A.F. Scholfield, Nicander: The Poems and Poetical Fragments, Cambridge, 1953 ; and Peter K. Knoefel and Madeline C. Covi, A Hellenistic Treatise on Poisonous Animals, Lewiston, Mellen Press, 1991.

Nicander had sources and forebears — these are lost and scholars debate whether to blame a shadowy 185 SCIENCE AND MAGIC PAUL T. KEYSER follower of Bölos, one criminals to test his recipes (Galen, De comp. med. per gen. 1.13 [13.164 K.]), just as Esarhaddon had, some five centuries prior, rhythmic recipes for use in case of snake bite (as none were serum Moreover, it is clear that polypharmacy was not solely the province of sectarians and sycophants. Mantias’ pupil Heraclides of Taras (fl. 75 B.C.) who became an empiric. had absorbed the flavor of the anu-venom, they would have had at best a stimulant effect), makage and retained its polypharmacy.” Apollodoros of Alexandria (fl. ca. 180 to ca. 150 B.C.)," or the obscure physician Numenios of Herakleia.” Nicander records ing use of dozens of herbs. He assumes knowledge of the plants (since he does not describe any), lavishing his metaphors rather on the beasts and their bites.” Why polypharmacy ? Perhaps the implicit theory was again sympathic — each plant had some antipathy to the poison of the beast - mix them all for greater power. In magic as in law, repetition and composition increase efficacy. Theriac engendered acceptance of polypharmacy ; Mantias the Herophilean (ca. 165 to 90 B.C.) advanced polypharmacy from theriac to therapy." Galen records that he was the first to emphasize strongly the use of compound drugs (De comp. med. per gen. 2.1 [13.462 K.]). This was not the price of uncertainty ; rather it was I believe a consequence of the theory of magical sympathy and a typically Hellenistic trend towards the complex and the manifold. He was also the first to write on pharmacy according to the affected places (Galen, De simpl. med. fac. 6 pr. [11.794-5 K.]), and seems to have focussed more on the recipes than the etiologies. One might note that it was in this era of polypharmacy, the era of Nicander and Mantias, that Attalos III of Pergamon is recorded as using # M. Wellmann, ‘Apollodoros (69), RE 1.2 (1894) 2895 claims him as the source for all later ‘iologues’ ; cp. Pliny 24.167 (Apollodoros a follower of ‘Demokritos’) and Ailian, HA 8.7.12. I place him ca. 180 to 150 B.C. as being berween Bôlos and Nicander. 5 Hans Diller, Numenios (7a), RES. 7 (1940) 663-4 makes Numenios’ Theriaka the source of Nicander. Numenios date is a problem : he is the student of Dieuches the ‘dogmatic’ dictician — see M. Wellmann, ‘Dieuches (3), RE 5.1 (1905) 480 — who is himself conventionally dated by his position in two lists given by Galen, De simpl. med. fac. 6 pr. (11.795 K.) and Comm. in Hipp. Nat. Hom. (15.136 K.). But the lists are inconsistent with one another, and are clearly nof meant to be chronological (cp. 11.795-6 K.). Pliny, HN 23.60 (cp. Diosc., MM 5.14) has Dieuches refer to Hippocrates and his successors as antigut, which suggests a later rather than an carlier date, Even if Dieuches date were established, calling Numenios his student proves little : in his MSS, Heron of Alexandria, fl. 55 to 68 C.E., is called the student of Kresibios (fl. 260 B.C.). ' John Scarborough, ‘Nicander’s toxicology, I : snakes’, Pharmacy in History 19 (1977) 3-23 : idem, ‘Nicander’s toxicology, II : spiders, scorpions, insects, and myrtapods', Pharmacy in History 21 (1979) 3-34, 73-94 ; Jean-Marie Jacques, ‘Nicandre de Colophon, poéte et médecin”, Afema 4 (1979) 133-49. "von Staden (supra, n. 41) 515-8. The later herbals of the Hellenistic era are mainly lost, but represented for us by Scribonius (under Tiberius), Thessalos of Tralles (Claudius or Nero), Dioscorides (under Nero), and Pliny (A.D.77). Dioscorides arranged his herbal according to the plants’ properties, i.e., their dunameis in the body (Diosc. MM pr.3, 5). For example, ‘drying’ substances are collected together, as again are those ‘heating’ (cp. Galen, De simpl. med. fac. 1.2-20 [11.382-416 K.})." This is system in the service of sympathy, magic made methodical. Pliny, on the other hand, is so catholic as to be deceptive, and so epitomized as to be befuddling. Consider for example the rendering (or rather rending) of Theophrastos, H.P. 9.16, in Pliny HN. 25.92 — the source is clear but the method is not.” Pliny depends almost wholly on literary sources (contrast Dioscorides) ; auctoritas and the magnitude of his task have overwhelmed autopsy. Like Theophrastos, he acknowledges the value of data gathered from folk wisdom. He also. as noted above, includes much from the realms of magic and sympathy. ‘This is all in stark contrast to the sober and rational Scribonius who smoothly melds book-learning with practical experience.“ Thessalos is the most magical — he writes about the astrologic ovuróBera of 12 zodiacal herbs and 7 planetary plants.” " Karl Deichgräber, Die Griechische Empirikerschule, Berlin, Weidmann. 1930, pp. 186-7 (irr. 193-202) ; sce esp. Galen. De comp. med. per gen. 2.5 (13.502 K.), De comp. med. sec. loc. 6.9 (12.989 K.). See also H. Gossen, ‘Herakleides (54), RE 8.1 (1913) 493-6. j | # John Scarborough and Vivian Nutton, ‘The Preface of Dioscorides’ Materia Medica : Introduction, Translation, and Commentary’, Transactions and Studies of the | College of Physicians of Philadelphia ser. 5, vol. 4 (1982) 187-227. fl John M. Riddle, Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine, Austin, U. of ‘Texas Press, 1985, pp. 168-76. 2 Lloyd (supra, n. 29) 143-4. 5 Cp. John Scarborough, ‘Pharmacy in Pliny’s Natural History : Some observations on substances and sources’, in Roger French and Frank Greenaway (ed.), Science in the Early Roman Empire : Pliny the Elder, his Sources and Influence, Totowa, NJ, Barnes and Noble, 1986, pp. 59-85. 3 Hans-Veit Friedrich, Thessalos von Tralles : griechisch und latemisch, Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie, 28, Meisenheim am Glan, Anton Hein, 1967. See also John Scarborough, “The Pharmacology of Sacred Plants, Herbs, and Roots’, in C. A. Faraone and Dirk Obbink (eds.), Magika Hiera : Ancient Greek Magic and Religion, New York/ Oxford, Oxford U. Press, 1991, pp- 138-74.

187 First, in De simpl. med. fac. (On the Mixing and Powers of Galen’s Context and Contribution Simples’), Galen advances three interlocking theories. First, the four In the second century A.D,, the related issues of authority and transcendence came gradually to dominate most intellects. Men from M. Aurelius to Montanus saw the real world as petty and horrid, and turned instead to the divine, resignedly or enthusiastically as the case may be. Galen too was afflicted, though his case was mild. His authorities were Plato and Hippocrates in harmony - his transcendent was the demiurge who created all things ‘for the best’ (a teleologic Zeus). [That Galen’s case was mild may be seen from remarks he makes against those who irrationally accept claims based solely on tradition (c.g., Puls. Diff. 2.4 [8.579 K.], 3.3 [8.657 K.]) and from the fact that he refuses to accept an arbitrary supreme being (Us. Part. 11.14 [3.905K.})] Galen, in seeking an authority in medicine, sought one who would scem an outstanding doctor, yet no mere doctor. Plato, who in the second century A.D. was the most admired philosopher of antiquity, had praised Hippocrates. And just as Galen was (or thought he was) both doctor and philosopher, so he could see Hippocrates in a like light. Galen seems to have felt that by investigation he had established that indeed Hippocrates was reliable." But as a result, Galen was forced to examine the Hippocratic corpus rather critically, to excise portions providing contrary data. On the other hand, his interpretation of the portions he did include is rather like the Stoic reading of Homer : less exegesis than eisegesis. (That is, just as the Stoic allegorizers insisted on reading their pneumatic and perfect divinity into the deeds and misdeeds of Zeus and family in the epic cycle, so Galen read his philosophic and Platonic father-doctor into the polyphony of the Hippocratic cycle.) In his own pharmaceutical work, Galen betrays little that is explicitly Hippocratic, much that is steeped in notions of sympathy. Yet his presentation may readily mislead readers of a more materialistic age (or at least one less pneumatic and less sympathic). If we examine his theories, and a few of his prescriptions, we can howi<=n main alterations (dAAowoeıc) are the familiar heating/cooling and wetting/drying pairs. All others, such as softening/hardening, are to be explained in terms of these basic four : De simpl. med. fac. 5.26 (11.784-6 K.), and all of Book 4 (11.619-703 K.). Second, each plant or other medicinal material has a degree of effect (which he calls a táEic or &xdotacic), from zero to four or five (the greatest) : De simpl. med. fac. 1.27 (11.428-30 K.), 3.10 (11.560-1 K.), and 5.27 (11.786-8 K.) ; also De comp. med. per gen. 1.2 (13.367-9 K.).* For example, water is cooling degree zero (neutral), while rose-water is first-degree cooling ; alum is third-degree drying ; opium is fourthdegree cooling. Mixtures, he hints in De simpl. med. fac., will have intermediate degrees : De simpl. med. fac. 1.4-8 (11.385-97 K.) of different sorts of water, 1.29 (11.433 K.), and 3.12 (11.565-70 K.).” Third, these degrces of affect of the four primary aAAowoeis are to be measured by human measure : De simpl. med. fac. 3.9 (11.557-60 K.), 3.13 (11.570-3 K.). This measure is by preference and ideally to be taken first by an unbiased and healthy observer and then by a sick one : De simpl. med. fac. 1.21 (11.416-9 K.). ‘These theories are fitted with (not really proven by) a heterogenous collection of data in De simpl. med. fac. 6-11 (11.789-12,377 K.). These amount to Galen’s materia medica. Books 6 to 8 are the herbal, Book 9 the mineral, and Books 10 and 11 the animal materia medica. It is in the last two that one sces most clearly Galen's tendency to accept certain remedies of magical or quasi-magical character. He speaks against yonteto, quite firmly, but he often accepts magical remedies from authoritative predecessors, while interpreting them according to his system. In writing against the use of magical remedies, Galen singles out two authors for especial execration : Xenocrates and Apollonios. These will be Xenocrates of Aphrodisias, who around the time of Nero wrote a book On Useful Things from Living Beings (extracts of which survive in De simpl. med. fac. 10.1-2),* and the Herophilean ever see clearly his debt to his age and his predecessors. %G, E, R. Lloyd. ‘Galen on Hellenistics and Hippocrateans : Contemporary Battles and Past Authorities’, Galen und das hellenistische Erbe, SudhofPs Archiv : Beihefie, 32, Stuttgart, Steiner, 1993, pp. 125-43 (repr. in G. E. R. Lloyd, Methods and Problems in Greek Science, Cambridge, Cambridge U, Press, 1991, pp. 398416). % Georg Harig, Bestimmung der Intensität in Medizinischen System Galens, Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR : ZIAGA, Schriften zur Geschichte und Kultur der Antike, 11, Berlin, Akademie-Verlag, 1974, pp. 117-33. 57 One is reminded of the slightly later Chinese theory of herbal mixtures (supra nn. 20-21), according to which they have degrees of taste and temperature, and must agree in terms of the seven emotions, ® Fridolf Kudlien, ‘Xenokrates (8), RE 9A.2 (1967) 1529-31. The only verbatim extract is De simpl. med. fac. 10.2 (12.261K.).

189 Apollonios Mys, of the late first century B.C." Xenocrates preof them all (save that of castrated pigs), while that of wild boars is scribed cating certain parts of people — that is horrid. Galen strongest of all (284-5 K.). To drink such urine is horrid, as is shown exclaims, as are his prescriptions of drinks of sweat, urine, menses, by an anecdote about a certain worthy man (tig avnp GEA oyo¢ Ber and earwax.” Xenocrates claims absurd efficacies, such as being Kai Bio). While in Syria and suffering from the plague, he wouldn't even drink boys’ urine, which many others drank and claimed had saved them (285 K.). It does have a cleansing power, as one can tell by its use among the fullers (yvageic). In fact doctors smear it on able to win in court, or literally steal your opponent’s voice, or cause an abortion, or prevent conception, etc. (De simpl. med. fac. 10.1 [12.251-2 K.]) : these are among the claims of magicians. The implicit theory of Xenocratés, which Galen does not bother to explain, must be that such materials carry, as does blood, some part skin diseases (y@pa and Arpa) and pour it on suppurating sores ; of the life-force of the person. Galen rejects the use of various they cure dandruff (4xwp and nitvpov) and infected ears with it. Galen rejects most of this as there are better medicines to hand. But effluvia, such as urine and sweat (De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.14 [12.283 even Galen has often cured sores on the toes, and even on the lower K.]), bladderstones and pus (De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.17 [12.290 K.)). body (but never higher), by prescribing that the sufferer urinate on the sore (285-6 K.). Galen claims that the medicine called xpvcoxöAAa, made from boys’ urine, and for which he gives a precise and full recipe, is the best cure for resistant sores. It works well he In cach case, there are more efficacious (ordinary) remedies to hand, and the fluids (sweat and pus, at least) are described as materials fit only for magic (yonteio). The same is said of such matters as crocodile blood (De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.6 [12.263 K.]) and mouse feces (De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.28 [12.307 K.]). Apollonios Mys is elsewhere quoted without opprobrium (e.g. De comp. med. sec. loc. 2.1 [12.510 K.] of castor oil, 3.1 [12.614-5 K.] remedies for caraches). But his prescription for dandruff («xwp). involving having bull or camel urinc poured over the head, is unendurable to a pure person (xaBápros &vOpwnoc) : De comp. med. sec. loc. 1.8 (12.476-7). And for inflammations of the uvula (yapyapedv), Apollonios prescribes drinkclaims, and has no ßöeAvpia (286-7 K.). The white matter settling out of urine is said by some to be good for épvcinedac, which is wrong since both urine and épvaineAag arc hot in nature ; likewise it is not necessary to drink boys’ urine for 6pforvora : it does not work, and there are other medicines which do work (286-7 K.)."! Galen’s use of feces is likewise ambiguous : he devotes over a quarter of book 10 to this material, yet either denies its efficacy, or damns it with faint praise. Feces has a most powerful expulsive ing donkey-urine, but Galen is sure that almost all would sooner die force, though human feces is disgusting (BSeAvpa) due to its smell. than drink donkey urine : De comp. med. sec. loc. 6.8 (12.983). The feces of cows, goats, ground-crocodiles, and dogs (fed on bones) On the other hand, Galen frequently quotes such remedies himself, fitting them to his theory, and excusing their presence by claiming they are not BöeAvpög (disgusting). He speaks this way of urine does not stink, and has been proven useful by Galen and others (De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.18 [12.290-1 K.]). He knows about the use of dog feces from one of his teachers, who fed the dogs only bones for and feces ; he also records a magical charm using spit against scortwo days straight, and thus obtained feces which were hard, white, pions, and one using crayfish against rabies, each of whose efficacy and not stinking. It is used after drying for severe sore throat he explains, (svvayxn), Svoeviepia, and the oldest sores. Galen again gives full In De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.15 (12.284-8 K.), Galen discourses on urine. One can tell by their smell that human urine is the weakest and precise recipes (De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.19 [12.291-2 K.]). Even human feces can be used successfully ; Galen records a case in which a boy, fed a restricted diet of lupines and mildly-salted, leavened pan-bread, produced feces useable just as dog-feces are (De M. Wellmann, ‘Apollonios (103), RE 2.1 (1895) 149-50 ; von Staden (supra simpl. med. fac. 10.2.20 [12.293-5 K.]).°? n. 41) 540-554. TM Galen, De sunpl. med. fac. 10,1 (12.248-50). In fact, for Galen, eating feces and drinking menses are even worse (peîtov dveidoc) than homosexuality, and just as porvikiCer is worse than AcofráLew, so coprophagy is worse than menses-drinking. $ Cp. also De simpl. med. fac. 10.2.14 (12,283-4 K.) where Galen prescribes the mixture of sweat and dirt called kovicadov for curing unnatural tumors, Diosc. 2.81.2 gives recipes using boys’ urine as a cure for skin diseases, dandruff, sores, '* Cp. also Archigenes’ use of canine and human feces for scabs in the mouth :

191 treat the Aewnv (apparently a dry rough redness) on their little bodily effluvia.* Galen supports his practices by appeals to experience and suppresses (for the most part) the explicitly magical theory. But he does retain the traditional magical practices in not a few charges, and Nicander’s observation that saliva kills poisonous cases. Galen provides a few charms. In De simpl. med. fac. 10.16 (12.288- 90 K.), he records the observation that nurses use their saliva to beasts (evidently saliva is cold and wet, while poison - and Aewnv — is hot and dry). [Someone once showed Galen an incantation (enwön), which he said thrice, spitting each time, and so killed a scorpion. But Galen later saw the same thing done without the incantation ; and the spat-upon scorpions died more quickly from the saliva of thirsty or hungry people. [The saliva itself must have some anti-venom force. Likewise, Galen records the magical recipe of his teacher, Aischrion of Pergamon, which Pelops (another teacher) did not refute but explained (De simpl. med. fac. 11.24 [12.356-9 K.]). This involved the use of crayfish (notapiog kapKivog) as a remedy for rabid-dog bites.’ One ashes the living crayfish in a red copper bowl, which Aischrion always did after the rising of Sirius, when the sun was in Leo, and the moon on her eighteenth day. Used for forty days, it always worked. Pelops explained this by saying that the crayfish, being aquatic, works in this recipe against rabies, since those afflicted fear water (a clear principle of avtiutdBera), One does not use saltwater crayfish, as saltwater contains salt, a very drying substance. Therefore, the freshwater crayfish ashes absorb and expel the poison. So says Pelops, but Galen does not accept this ; rather he believes that the crayfish in its Own unique nature confers a benefit ; in any case, he has seen it work.TM Throughout these sections of De simpl. med. fac., one is reminded of the widespread magical belief in the power of ordure and other De comp. med. sec. loc. 6.7 (12.954-6 K.). Other feces are also useable — that of doves is quite useful, De simpl. med. fac. 10.25 (12.302-3), and that of the ground-crocodile is used by women for the face (!) and is good for EpnAıg (freckles ?), dApós (white leprosy ?), and Asıynv (mentagra ?) 10.29 (13.207-8K.). “The same efficacy is claimed for the same animal, but without the magic, by Tn his second pharmaceutical work, De comp. med. per gen., Galen explains why polypharmacy is appropriate within his system, and recognizes the importance in polypharmacy of getting the proportions right. Any system in which mixtures are held efficacious in virtue of their being a certain mixture, and which bases that claim on some rational theory, will require that proportions be indicated. As noted above, the Egyptians had long ago begun to give proportions (though in their case, it is not clear on what basis), Galen notes the contribution of Menekrates ( A.D, 25 + 25 ) who wrote out his numerals to preserve them, but his manuscripts were afflicted with copyists all the same.“ Damocrates (fl. 65 + 10 A.D.) wrote his prescriptions, as had Nicander, in verse. Galen approves the use of hexameters to preserve the written-out numerals, and quotes many of Damocrates’ verse-prescriptions {but Galen does not give his own recipes in verse) : De comp. med. per gen. 7.9 (13.991-6)." There are many prescriptions by Galen (and even more by predecessors) in De comp. med. per gen. An example of a prescription by Galen will illustrate his procedure and method in justifying polypharmacy : De comp. med. per gen. 1.4 (13.375-94). Here Galen gives the recipe for his tested multi-use plaster, which draws together, and forms scabs on, wounds and sores, and is used even by Empirics. First, the best drugs found by doctors are those mixed of opposing powers (375.7-8 K.), and second, ‘reason discovers the mixture while experience judges its virtue’ (376.2-3 K.). The basis is alum and palm juice (in which there is a dispelling and a styptic power) and old oil or fat (in which there is a sweat-raising power) ; to these one adds a bit of litharge (for drying), a bit of wine or vinegar (cooling and astringent), and a bit of myrtle or apple or quince (375-6 K.). It turns out that in fact the palm is to be added by stirring the mixture with a fresh palm branch (378 K.).” To kill pain, Diosk. 2.12. “ Two other clear examples of syinpathic magic should be mentioned. In De simpl. med. fac. 11.1.1 (12.311-20 K.) on viper meat, Galen remarks that it is efficacious against EAepac (true leprosy ?), an efficacy proven by several anecdotes and experiences which Galen details. And in De simpl med. fac, 11.1,10 (12,335 K.), Galen rejects the cating of cooked liver of a rabid dog as a cure for their bite — those on whom this worked had used other medicines, while some of those who used only this died. 6 On which cp. Walton Brooks McDaniel, “The Medical and Magical Significance in Ancient Medicine of Things Connected with Reproduction and Its Organs’, Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 3 (1948) 525-46. % Hans Raeder, ‘Menekrates (28), RE 15.1 (1931) 801. #7 Max Wellman, ‘Damokrates (8), RE 4.2 (1901) 2069-70. 6 This seems rather like a traditional magical procedure, rationalized by Galen.

one adds mandrake, henbane, or opium (385-7 K.). The mixture is Table 1 to be altered as needed for use with those of a weaker constitution Galen’s treatment for alopekia (391 K.). Thus one sees that despite (later) rightly advocating precision in recipes, Galen here in practice allows the attending physician to compound the plaster almost entirely ad hoc. The principle of the composition is maintained : the simples (here alum, palm juice, etc.) have each their characteristic powers, and the compound is made simply to have all those powers present in a single substance. His system becomes clearer from the recipes in his third book, 193 = gum thistle (spurge) SM 6.5.24 [11.879] 3.82)” s : see resinifera cuphorbio (cp. Diosc. euphorbia burning thapsia : see SM 6.8.2 [11.885] = deadly carrot thapsia garganica (cp. Diosc. 4.153) heating and wetting De comp. med. sec. loc., in which he gives prescriptions for medicines categorized by their application to specific places, i.e., affected parts. He begins with the head, and particularly with the bald head, giving a recipe for «Aorexia in a lengthy pair of chapters : De comp. med. sec. loc. 1.1-2 (12.379-421 K.). Most of the section is taken up with old recipes from such worthies as Heras, Criton, Heraclides of For the thapsia one may substitute : kardamos : see SM 7.10.8 [12.11-12] = cress lepidium sativum (cp. Diosc. 2.155) Taras, Cleopatra, Archigenes, Asklepiades, and Soranos (398-420 euzomos : = rocket eruca satwa (cp. Diosc. 2.140) K.). These are implicitly held to be validated by experience (i.e., the experience of the trusted authorities from whom they are quoted), so that none of Galen’s theory could be seen in them. Again, he allows the attending physician to alter the dosage in response to the effect (395-7 K.). His basic principle is one of ouunaßeıe : the hair on the head is like a field of grain, so that treating the scalp as one does the soil should make the hair grow. The ingredients he gives burning PPPP daphninos : see SM 6.4.4 [11.863] = bay laurel laurus nobilis (cp. Diosc. 1.140)" drying and heating (De comp. med. sec. loc. 1.2 [12.393 K.]) are listed in Table L It is theion apuron : see SM 9.3.9 [12.217-8] = sulfur clear that the theory here is the same : the various powers add up, drawing and heating probably according to their degrees, to produce a compound of the drying of daphninos ; the others produce heat to warm the blood to helleboros : see SM 6.5.9 [11.874] = Christmas rose helleborus niger (cp. Diosc. 4.162)” nourish the scalp and hence grow the hair. Given the fundamental cleaning and heating desired effect. Note that the wetting of thapsia is counteracted by the sympathetic-magic assumption (hair is like grass), the rest follows logically. lion fat ; bear fat : see SM 11.1.2 [12.327 ; 331] hottest ; good for alopekia TM See LeStrange (supra n. 14) 117-8. 1 See James A. Duke, Handbook of Medicinal Herbs, Boca Raton FL, CRG Press, 1985, pp. 271-2. For compactness, I use in the table the abbreviation SM for De stmpl. med. fac. 72 See Duke (supra n. 71) 227, LeStrange (supra n. 14) 134-6.

Another recipe from the same work, for toothpaste, shows the same rationalized magical theory at work : De comp. med. sec. loc. 5.5 Concluston (12.884-6 K.) The ingredients are listed in Table IL Here the styptic and drying powers add, to produce the sympathetically proper Magic readily entered medicine - remedies from foreigners would easily be seen to be working by magic, if magic be defined (as I would prefer) as ‘excluded practices depending for their efficacy on powers in the world beyond human understanding’. Moreover, when we view ancient medicine, many practices not excluded (say by Pliny) strike us as magical, because we would exclude them (amulets and charms, e.g.). Galen seems more in tune with our effect on teeth, hard and dry. (Note that the drying and heating honey cancels the effect of the moistening and cooling sidéritis and perdikias.) There is also a net cleansing effect from the sidéritis and the salt. Galen concludes by noting that as it is altogether drying, one should avoid applying it to the gums. 195 view, as he rejects amulets, and accepts only those charms or magical practices which he can prove by experience and explain according to his theory of humours and natural powers. Thus spitting on Table Il Galen’s toothpaste scorpions to kill them works not because of the chant, but because of the medicinal power of saliva, especially that of fasting persons. The crayfish roasting ritual involving astrology Galen explains as sidéritis : see SM 8.18.13 [12.121] = ironwort sidéritis romana (cp. Diosc. 4.33-5) perdikias : see SM 6.5.10 [11.874-5] = helxiné efficacious due to the innate nature of crayfish which somehow cures rabies, In particular, his theory is based on the notion that all things have natural powers (by which they live and move), and that these can be used medicinally. The basic powers are Hot/Cold and polygonum maritimum (cp. Diosc. 4.85) cleansing, lightly styptic, with somewhat cool wetness produce a compound of desired effect. This is essentially a theory cleansing, a bit styptic, mainly moistening, moderately cooling Wet/Dry (so far Hippocratic), which may be blended by degrees to of cupxdGea, and even if not in Galen tricked out with any persalt : see SM 9.3.2 [12.210-1] cleansing and styptic meating pneuma, is a theory he called rational and which seems magical to us, Surely it is as rational and as magical as the theories of alum : see SM 9.3.30. [12.236-7] sympathy (based on pneuma) according to which astrology works or according to which Thessalos of Tralles prescribed 12 zodiacal strongest styptic herbs and 7 planetary plants. Within the framework of that theory, Galen procceds systematihoney : see SM 7.12.9 [12.70-1] cally, save when authority intrudes. Feces may have an expulsive drying, heating force (according to which they are expelled), but no-one need usc them, disgusting as they are, since other medicines are available. A third point from the same work should be noted. Galen rejects But, Galen allows the use of the feces of dogs which have been fed amulets (nepianta), since, although proffered by Archigenes Pneumaticist for headache, they have no medical logos to those who only on bones, and claims that their feces is not disgusting. The basis is not his rationalized magical theory of sympathy of powers have judged by experience. Archigenes claimed that they worked by (Hot/Cold, etc.), but rather his basis for prescribing is the authorithe a ‘certain astonishing (Bovpaotñ) antipathy unknown to humankin (De comp. med. sec. loc. 2.2 |12.573-6 K.]). d’ ty of one of his teachers. And urine for sores on the lower body is prescribed on Galen’s own authority and experience (yet behind that is the authority of the frequently-cited Apollonios Mys). His own recipes, as exemplified in the cures quoted for alopekia and for teeth, compounded drugs assuming their various sympa-

thetic properties. Yet he also quotes numerous earlier recipes (which of Ludwig Edelstein, Baltimore/ London, Johns Hopkins U. Press, do not necessarily follow his theory) - on the basis that authoritative doctors used them. The tradition of magical thinking, of using charms, amulets, and incomprehensible powers of plants, which began long before Hippocrates, and which reentered Greek medical writing via Bölos, Mantias, and others, continues to flow through Galen. He cleared 197 1967, pp. 205-246. C. Fabricius, Galens Exzerpte aus älteren Pharmakologen, Ars Medica: Zweite Abteilung: Griechisch-lateinische Medizin, 2, Berlin/ New York, de Gruyter 1972. H.-V. Friedrich, Thessalos von ‘Tralles: griechisch und lateinisch, Beiträge zur klassischen Philologie, 28, Meisenheim am Glan, Anton Hein, 1967. charms and amulets, for the most part. But he retained the essen- P. 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R.H. Pfeiffer, State Letters of Assyria, American Oriental Series, vol. 6, New Haven, American Oriental Society, 1935, H. Raeder, Menekrates (28), RE 15.1 (1931) 801. JM. Riddle, Dioscorides on Pharmacy and Medicine, Austin TX, U. of Texas Press, 1985. J.-M. Riddle, ‘Folk Tradition and Folk Medicine: Recognition of Drugs in Classical Antiquity’, in John Scarborough (ed.), Folklore and Folk Medicines, Madison, American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, : LA THERIAQUE CHEZ GALIEN SA PREPARATION ET SON USAGE T HERAPEUTIQUE MICHAEL STEIN 1987, pp. 33-61 (repr. as XIV in Quid pro Quo: Studies in the history of drugs, Brookfield, VT, Ashgate. and Hampshire, Variorum, 1992). . Scarborough, “Theophrastus on Herbals and Herbal Remedies’, Journal of the History of Biology 11 (1978) 353-85. sntu . 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J. Stannard, ‘Hippocratic Pharmacology’, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 35 (1961) 497-518. R.C. Thompson, The Assyrian Herbal, London, Luzac and Co., 1924. P.U. Unschuld, Medicinein China: A History of Pharmaccutics, Berkeley, U. of California, 1986. H. von Staden, Herophilus of Chalcedon, Cambridge, Cambridge U. Press, 1989. J. H. Waszink, ‘Bolos’, RAC 2 (1954) 502-8. M. Wellmann, ‘Apollodoros (69), RE 1.2 (1894) 2895. M. Wellmann, ‘Apollonios (103), RE 2.1 (1895) 149-50. De nos jours, en Europe, il est peu probable que l'on meure à la suite d'une morsure de serpent. Néanmoins, pour cinquante personnes par an, même aujourd'hui les premiers soins arrivent trop tard. Les victimes meurent d'une crise circulatoire générale après la morsure. La situation est différente dans les pays tropicaux où les serpents venimeux constituent une menace importante. Au niveau international, on estime le nombre de morts à la suite d’une morsure de serpent à quarante mille, pour un total d'un million sept cent mille morsures — cela fait un taux moyen de mortalité de deux pour cent environ. En outre, la venimosité varie selon l’espèce de serpent : d'un pour cent pour une morsure de péliade à trente deux pour cent pour le cobra et cent pour cent pour le mamba noir.' En Europe, ce sont surtout les vipéridés qui peuvent mordre les gens — notamment pendant la nuit, quand elles se sentent agressées.* Après la morsure d'une vipère, qui se produit surtout aux doigts, à la main où au bras, la peau autour de la morsure devient rouge. La victime souffre de fortes douleurs. Au bout de trente six à soixante douze heures, autour de la morsure, apparaît un cedéme qui est sensible à la pression et qui peut durer plusieurs semaines. Dans de rares cas, un membre doit être amputé. Des microbes et d'autres micro-organismes peuvent infecter la plaie et entraîner des complications. Le venin du serpent ne se contente pas d’agir à l'endroit de la ınorsure en provoquant une inflammation du tissu ; il peut entrer dans le sang et attaquer l'ensemble des organes humains. Dans le M. Wellmann, ‘Die älteste Kräuterbuch der Griechen’, in Festgabe für Franz Susemihl, Leipzig, Teubner, 1898, repr. Anler, Scientia, 1985, pp- 1-31. M. Wellman, ‘Damokrates (8), RE 4.2 (1901) 2069-70. M. Wellmann, ‘Dieuches (3), RE5.1 (1905) 480. M. Wellmann, Die Georgika des Demokritos, Abhandlungen der Pre ussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philologisch-Historische Klasse. 1921, no. 4. R. W. Wrangham and T. Nishida, ‘Aspilia spp. Leaves: A Puzzle in the Feeding Behavior of Wild Chimpanzees’, Primates 24 (1983) 276-82. VS GALERA aw PRARMACELTG Y Voir H. Marquardt, S. G. Schäfer, Lehrbuch der Toxikologe, 1. Aufl. Mannheim, Leipzig, Wien, Zürich, Bibliographisches Institut, 1994, pp. 659-60 ainsi que F. W. Oehme, J. F. Brown, M. E. Fowler, “Toxins of Animal Origin’, in L. J. Casarett (ed), Casarett and Doull's Toxicology : The Basic Science of Poisons, New York, London, McGraw-Hill, 1980, 557-577, ? Un très bon aperçu, comportant des bibliographies détaillées, se trouve dans D. Gonzalez, ‘Snakebite Problems in Europa’, in A. T. Tu (edj, Reptile Venoms and toxins (= Handbook of Natural Toxins, Vol. 5), New York, Basel, Hong Kong, Marcel Dekker, 1991, 687-751.