The Arabic Transmission of Dioskurides: Philology Triumphant

摘要

Few works in the history of Western science (i.e., science among peoples and societies west of India) have had as much impact and enjoyed as widespread and longevous use as the Materia medica of Dioskurides, compiled in the first century A.D.; arguably none has. For eighteen centuries-and to this very day in some traditional societies practicing household remedies-pharmacology meant the contents of this book. It was translated into a number of languages, either wholly or partially and, in some cases, repeatedly, and it was continuously revised, re-arranged, enlarged or condensed, illustrated, and adapted to local knowledge from the Iberian peninsula to Central Asia. This constant revision, due to the needs of pharmacological practice over the centuries and in the vast geographical area just described, made for a very complicated and entangled history of the transmission of the text, in Greek as in the other major languages into which it was translated. The first major step in the study of this crucial work was accomplished a century ago by the publication of the critical edition of the Greek text by Max Wellmann (3 vols., Berlin: Weidmann, 1907-1914). Considering the said complexity, the edition was satisfactory for a first critical attempt, evenif Wellmann did not consult any of the translations. The appearance of Manfred Ullmann's Untersuchungen constitutes the second most important publication for carrying research into this seminal text significantly forward.