Galen (2nd century A.D.), after Hippocrates the most distinguished physician of antiquity, has left us numerous medical works to which no complete Greek-English dictionary or concordance was available until now. This is a dictionary of ancient Greek medical terms as culled from Galen's voluminous works, covering all medical fields: diet, drugs and surgery. It contains approximately 3,000 Greek words and 119,000 citations. Particularly rich is the vocabulary of plant names, which sometimes defy identification. Dealing with terms from the fields of anatomy, physiology, pathology, pharmacy and surgery this book is essential for the study of medical Greek and will be of interest to both historians of ancient medicine and to classical philologists.

The Alphabet of Galen is a critical edition and English translation of a text describing, in alphabetical order, nearly three hundred natural products - including metals, aromatics, animal materials, and herbs - and their medicinal uses. A Latin translation of earlier Greek writings on pharmacy that have not survived, it circulated among collections of 'authorities' on medicine, including Hippocrates, Galen of Pergamun, Soranus, and Ps. Apuleius. This work presents interesting linguistic features, including otherwise unattested Greek and Latin technical terms and unique pharmacological descriptions. Nicholas Everett provides a window onto the medieval translation of ancient science and medieval conceptions of pharmacy. With a comprehensive scholarly apparatus and a contextual introduction, The Alphabet of Galen is a major resource for understanding the richness and diversity of medical history.

The 14 papers in this volume were first presented at the Fifth International Galen Colloqium held in Lille in 1995 and represent a first attempt to explore systematically this vast complicated area. The contributors cover a wide variety of themes, broadly grouped as: the epistemology , method and practice of medicine, Galen and pharmacological tradition, Galen's pharmacological treatises and the transmission of pharmacological texts. Their papers shed a new light on this ancient therapeutic field and also help to understand Galen's pharmacology in its relation to the entire body of its work and thought.

Galen's treatises on the classification and causation of diseases and symptoms are an important component of his prodigious oeuvre, forming a bridge between his theoretical works and his practical, clinical writings. As such, they remained an integral component of the medical teaching curriculum well into the second millennium. This edition was originally published in 2006. In these four treatises (only one of which had been previously translated into English), Galen not only provides a framework for the exhaustive classification of diseases and their symptoms as a prelude to his analysis of their causation, but he also attempts to establish precise definitions of all the key terms involved. Unlike other of his works, these treatises are notably moderate in tone, taking into account different views on structure and causation in a relatively even-handed way. Nonetheless, they are a clear statement of the Dogmatic position on the theoretical foundations of medicine in his time.

Medical texts written in English during the late Middle Ages have in recent years attracted increasing attention among scholars. From approximately 1375 onwards, the use of English began to gain a firmer foothold in medical manuscripts, which in previous centuries had been written mainly in Latin or French. Scholars of Middle English, and editors of medical texts from late medieval England, are thus faced with a huge medical vocabulary which no single volume has yet attempted to define. This dictionary is therefore an essential reference tool. The material analysed in the Dictionary of Medical Vocabulary in English, 1375–1550 includes edited texts, manuscripts and early printed books, and represents three main types of medical writing: surgical manuals and tracts; academic treatises by university-trained physicians, and remedybooks. The dictionary covers four lexical fields: names of sicknesses, body parts, instruments, and medicinal preparations. Entries are structured as follows: (1) headword (2) scribal variants occurring in the texts (3) etymology (4) definition(s), each definition followed by relevant quotations (5) references to corresponding entries in the Dictionary of Old English, Middle English Dictionary, and The Oxford English Dictionary (6) references to academic books and articles containing information on the history and/or meaning of the term.

This book presents a translation of and detailed commentary on Galen's De alimentorum facultatibus - his major work on the dynamics and kinetics of various foods. It is thus primarily a physiological treatise rather than a materia medica or a work on pathology. Galen commences with a short section on the epistemology of medicine, with a discussion on the attainment, through apodeixis or demonstration, of scientific truth - a discussion which reveals the Aristotelian roots of his thinking. The text then covers a wide range of foods, both common and exotic. Some, such as cereals, legumes, dairy products and the grape, receive an emphasis that reflects their importance at the time; others are treated more cursorily. Dr Powell, an expert in gastroenterology, discusses Galen's terminology and the background to his views on physiology and pathology in his introduction, while John Wilkins' foreword concentrates on the structural and cultural aspects of the work.

Robert Leigh offers a critical edition with translation into English, commentary and introduction of the pharmacological treatise On Theriac to Piso traditionally attributed to Galen. The focus of the work is on the question of authorship and Leigh seeks to show on textual, pharmacological, doctrinal and historical grounds that the attribution to Galen is at least highly problematic and probably mistaken. As well as marshalling the arguments in the introduction, Leigh seeks in the commentary not only to give a general exegesis of the text but also to identify points of agreement and points of difference between the treatise and other works which are undisputedly in the genuine Galenic corpus.

This book is a study of the ways in which Galen sought to establish the brain as the regent part (hegemonikon) of the body, utilising a rigorous anatomical epistemology and an often sophisticated (but perforce limited) set of physiological arguments Part One surveys the medical and philosophical past in which the study of the brain occured, and looks at the materials and methods which Galen employs to legitimate his hegemonic argumentation. Part Two examines Galen's anatomical understanding of the brain, especially the ventricles. Part Three offers a critical evaluation of Galen's physiolgy of the brain. This is the first monograph to offer a detailed account of this subject, setting it within the cultural and intellectual contexts of its era, and will be of interest to those in classics, medical history, history andphilosophy of science and the history of ideas.

The volume investigates how Paul of Aegina's medical handbook or pragmateia was transmitted and transformed through Syriac and Arabic translations, becoming one of the cornerstones of the Islamic medical tradition. It uses new manuscript evidence in order to explore the crucial impact of Paul's pragmateia, tracing its steps through different languages and cultures in the Middle East. A discussion of different Syriac and Arabic authors who quote the pragmateia such as Ibn Serapion and Rhazes is followed by detailed studies of Greek-Syriac-Arabic translation technique, examining, for instance, ophthalmologic terminology, and giving a critical appraisal of translation syntax and lexicography. Paul's influence on the development of medical theory in the Islamic world and beyond is also addressed, making it an important contribution not only to Graeco-Arabic studies, but also to the history of medicine in general.

Fresh examinations of the role of medicinal plants in medieval thought and practice and how they contributed to broader ideas concerning the body, religion and identity. The important and ever-shifting role of medicinal plants in medieval science, art, culture, and thought, both in the Latin Western medical tradition and in Byzantine and medieval Arabic medicine, is the focus of this new collection. Following a general introduction and a background chapter on Late Antique and medieval theories of wellness and therapy, in-depth essays treat such wide-ranging topics as medicine and astrology, charms and magical remedies, herbal glossaries, illuminated medical manuscripts, women's reproductive medicine, dietary cooking, gardens in social and political context, and recreated medieval gardens. They make a significant contribution to our understanding ofthe place of medicinal plants in medieval thought and practice, and thus lead to a greater appreciation of how medieval theories and therapies from diverse places developed in continuously evolving and cross-pollinating strands, and, in turn, how they contributed to broader ideas concerning the body, religion, identity, and the human relationship with the natural world. Contributors: MARIA AMALIA D'ARONCO, PETER DENDLE, EXPIRACION GARCIA SANCHEZ, PETER MURRAY JONES, GEORGE R. KEISER, DEIRDRE LARKIN, MARIJANE OSBORN, PHILIP G. RUSCHE, TERENCE SCULLY, ALAIN TOUWAIDE, LINDA EHRSAM VOIGTS