Note 2324 — Chapter XXV · POST-CLASSICAL MEDICINE

There appears to have been no complete edition of Aëtius in Greek. The first eight of his sixteen books were printed at Venice in 1534, and the ninth at Leipzig in 1757, but for the entire sixteen books one must use the Latin translation of Cornarius, Basel, 1542, etc., which I have read in Stephanus, Medicae artis principes, 1567.

Recent editions of portions of Aëtius are: Αετιου λογος δωδεκατος πρωτον νυν εκδοθεις ὑπο Γεωργιου Α. Κωστομοιρου, pp. 112, 131, Paris, 1862.

Die Augenheilkunde des Aëtius aus Amida, Griechisch und deutsch herausg. von J. Hirschberg, pp. xi, 204, Leipzig, 1899.

Aetii sermo sextidecimus et ultimus (Αετιου περι των εν μητρα παθων etc.). Erstens aus HSS veröffentl. mit Abbildungen, etc., v. S. Zervòs, pp. k’, 172, Leipzig, 1901.

Αετιου Αμιδινου Λογος δεκατος πεμπτος, ed. S. Zerbos, 1909, in Επιστημονικη Εταιρεια, Αθηνα, vol. 21.

My references to Alexander of Tralles are both to the text of Stephanus (1567) and the more recent edition by Theodor Puschmann, Alexander von Tralles, Originaltext und Übersetzung nebst einer einleitenden Abhandlung, Vienna, 1878-9, 2 vols. This gives a more critical text than any previous edition, but unfortunately Puschmann adopted still another arrangement into books than those of the MSS and previous editions, and also in my opinion did not make a sufficient study of the Latin MSS. His introduction contains information concerning Alexander’s life and the MSS and previous editions of his works.

A valuable earlier study on Alexander was that of E. Milward, published in 1733 under the title, A Letter to the Honourable Sir Hans Sloane Bart., etc., and in 1734 as Trallianus Reviviscens, 229 pp. Milward was preparing an edition of Alexander of Tralles, but it was never published. His estimate of Alexander’s position in the history of medicine furnishes an incidental picture of interest of the state of medicine in his own time, the early eighteenth century.

The old Latin translation of Alexander of Tralles was the first to be printed at Lyons, 1504, Alexandri yatros practica cum expositione glose interlinearis Jacobi de Partibus et (Simonis) Januensis in margine posite; also Pavia, 1520 and Venice 1522. Next appeared a very free Latin translation by Torinus in 1533 and 1541, Paraphrases in libros omnes Alexandri Tralliani. The Greek text of Alexander was first printed by Stephanus (Robert Étienne) in 1548 (ed. J. Goupyl). The Latin translation by Guinther of Andernach, which is included in Stephanus (1567), first appeared in 1549, Strasburg, and was reprinted a number of times.

Another work by Puschmann may also be noted: Nachträge zu Alexander Trallianus. Fragmente aus Philumenus und Philagrius nebst einer bisher noch ungedruckten Abhandlung über Augenkrankheiten, Berlin, 1886, in Berliner Studien f. class. Philol. und Archaeol., V, 2; 188 pp., in which he segregates as fragments of Philumenus and Philagrius portions of the text of Alexander as found in the Latin MSS.

My references for the De medicamentis of Marcellus apply to Helmreich’s edition of 1889 in the Teubner series. This edition is based on a single MS of the ninth century at Laon which Helmreich followed Valentin Rose in regarding as the sole extant codex of the work. As a result Rose indulged in ingenious theories to explain how the editio princeps by Ianus Cornarius, Basel, 1536, included the prefatory letter and other preliminary material not found in the Laon MS, whose first leaves and some others are missing.

But as a matter of fact BN 6880, a clear and beautifully written MS of the ninth century, contains the De medicamentis entire with all the preliminary letters. Moreover, it is evident that the editio princeps was printed directly from this MS, which contains not only notes by Cornarius but the marks of the compositors.

The text of the edition of 1536 was reproduced in the medical collections of Aldus, Medici antiqui, Venice, 1547, and Stephanus, Medicae artis principes, 1567.

Jacob Grimm, Über Marcellus Burdigalensis, in Abhandl. d. kgl. Akad. d. Wiss. z. Berlin (1847), pp. 429-60, discusses the evidence for placing Marcellus under the older Theodosius, lists the Celtic words and expressions found in the De medicamentis, and also one hundred specimens of its folk-lore and magic. This article was reprinted in Kleinere Schriften, II (1865), 114-51, where it is followed at pp. 152-72 by a supplementary paper, Über die Marcellischen Formeln, likewise reprinted from the Academy Proceedings for 1855, pp. 51-68.

The magic of Marcellus was further treated of by R. Heim, De rebus magicis Marcelli medici, in Schedae philol. Hermanno Usener oblatae (1891), pp. 119-37, where he adds nova magica ex Marcelli libris collata which Grimm had omitted.