Pedanius Dioscorides was born in Anazarbus which was part of the Roman province of Cilicia.
He was a Greek surgeon who served in Emperor Nero’s (AD 54-68) Roman Army and who, in the course of his military travels, complied what some consider to be the best description of medical botany to his name.
His great herbal was probably written around 60-78 BC, and mentioned 850 plants, animals, and minerals with discussion of their medical and non-medical uses. De Materia Medica described more than 600 plants with medical uses, 90 of which are still in use.
As an army physician, Dioscorides concentrated on soldier’s medicine, particularly wounds, But De Materia Medica also included a great deal of herbal folk wisdom.
De Materia Medica remained a standard reference for centuries and until the early 1600s, books on medical botany were little more than commentaries on Discorides’s work.
Until his classification was supplanted by that of Carolus Linnaeus in the 18th century, he stood as the foremost authority on pharmacy for more than sixteen hundred years.
He was recognized not only by later Roman and Byzantium writers but also by Islamic scholars.
Dioscorides (AD 40 - 90)
The most popular articles
-
Biography of Hippocrates Hippocrates is referred to ‘father of medicine’ in recognition of his lasting contributions to the field as the ... -
Varicella is an acute infectious disease caused by varicella-zoster virus (VZV). The first description of varicella infection on record was ... -
Muhammad Ibn Zakariya Razi, also known as Razi, collected some of the first known information on chickenpox and noted the differences betwee... -
Jean-Martin Charcot (29 November 1825 – 16 August 1893) was the son of a carriage-maker. He was the son and grandson of Parisian carriage ma...
-
Free radicals are chemical species which have unpaired electrons on the boundary (atomic or molecular) orbitals. The term “radical” was firs... -
Lazzaro Spallanzani an Italian physicist is most often credited person for discovering ultrasonography. In 1794, he analyzed the basic mecha...
-
Ebers Papyrus (1500 BCE -Before Common Era) and the Vedas of Ancient India around 1400 BCE are thought to have the earliest recorded referen...
-
The first written description of the cerebral cortex and the first indications that the site of brain injury can determine the nature of neu...
