Note 176 — Chapter IV · MARCUS GRÆCUS

“J. Mesuæ ... Opera,” Venice, 1581, p. 85. Fabricius thought this Greek physician might have been Gereon (qui forte est Gereon), Bibliotheca Græca, Hamburg, 1718-52, xiii. 172. I cannot follow MM. Reinaud and Favé and Herr von Romocki in identifying him with Dioskorides. The evidence (from the description of the cyclamen and the preparation of the syrup) seems to point the other way. The past tense, dixit, in the passage in the text, would seem to show that Ibn Serapion was dead when it was written. The present tense, dicit, indicates similarly that “Græcus” was then living, a contemporary of Masawyah’s. Yet Dutens speaks of his having lived “avant le médicin arabe.”