Pharmacotherapeutics

The extensive writings of Galen (129-after [?] 216 AD) clearly demonstrate that medical practitioners in Antiquity had access to comprehensive textual collections that systematically catalogued and accurately detailed the various formulae required for addressing a wide range of pathologies. These pharmacotherapeutic collections—now commonly referred to as pharmacological in a recently emerged, albeit improper, terminology—whether as specific treatises or as undefined, possibly loose collections, have rarely, if ever, been reassembled. Among the portion of the ancient production that has been preserved through the ages despite the deterioration of books, the destruction of entire libraries, and various forms of censorship, some treatises are presently available in standardized, modern critical editions, while numerous others remain unread or even unknown in manuscripts preserved in libraries across the world, as complete and analytically organized treatises, unstructured collections, or scattered formulae sometimes occasionally noted in the margins of a physician’s notebook. This corpus presents both known and critically edited treatises and previously unpublished material newly revealed here, all in a searchable format for renewed analysis.

Classical Antiquity

Byzantium

Middle Ages before Salerno

Middle Ages Salerno and later