DIOSCORIDES

Form: Pedanios.

A Greek physician and man of science. He flourished about the middle of the 1st century A.D., and was the author of a work De Materia Medica in five books. For nearly 1700 years this book was the chief authority for stu- dents of botany and the science of healing. Two short essays on specifies against vegetable and animal poisons (Alexipharmaca and Theriaca) are appended to it as the sixth and seventh books: but these are probably from the hand of a later Dioscorides of Alexandria. A work on family medicine is also attributed to him, but is not genuine.