For 1,600 years Dioscorides (ca. AD 40-80) was regarded as the
foremost authority on drugs. He knew mild laxatives and strong
purgatives, analgesics for headaches, antiseptics for wounds,
emetics to rid one of ingested poisons, chemotherapy agents for
cancer treatments, and even oral contraceptives. Why, then, have
his works remained obscure in recent centuries? Because of one
small oversight (Dioscorides himself thought it was self-evident):
he failed to describe his method for organizing drugs by their
affinities. This omission led medical authorities to use his
materials as a guide to pharmacy while overlooking Dioscorides'
most valuable contribution--his empirically derived method for
observing and classifying drugs by clinical testing.
Dioscorides' De materia medica, a five-volume work, was written
in the first century. Here revealed for the first time is the
thesis that Dioscorides wrote more than a lengthy guide book. He
wrote a great work of science. He had said that he discovered the
natural order and would demonstrate it by his arrangement of drugs
from plants, minerals, and animals. Until John M. Riddle's
pathfinding study, no one saw the genius of his system. Botanists
from the eighteenth century often attempted to find his unexplained
method by identifying the sequences of his plants according to the
Linnean system but, while there are certain patterns, there
remained inexplicable incoherencies. However, Dioscorides' natural
order as set down in De materia medica was determined by drug
affinities as detected by his acute, clinical ability to observe
drug reactions in and on the body. So remarkable was his ability to
see relationships that, in some cases, he saw what we know to be
common chemicals shared by plants of the same and related species
and other natural product drugs from animal and mineral
sources.
Western European and Islamic medicine considered Dioscorides the
foremost authority on drugs, just as Hippocrates is regarded as the
Father of Medicine. They saw him point the way but only described
the end of his finger, despite the fact that in the sixteenth
century alone there were over one hundred books published on him.
If he had explained what he thought to be self-evident, then
science, especially chemistry and medicine, would almost certainly
have developed differently. In this culmination of over twenty
years of research, Riddle employs modern science and
anthropological studies innovatively and cautiously to demonstrate
the substance to Dioscorides' authority in medicine.
General
Imprint: |
University Of Texas Press
|
Country of origin: |
United States |
Series: |
History of Science Series |
Release date: |
1986 |
First published: |
March 2011 |
Authors: |
John M. Riddle
|
Dimensions: |
229 x 152 x 25mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Paperback - Trade
|
Pages: |
328 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-292-72984-1 |
Categories: |
Books
|
LSN: |
0-292-72984-7 |
Barcode: |
9780292729841 |
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