Pedanius Dioscorides
c. 40–90 · Greek physician and botanist of the first century whose De Materia Medica was the standard guide to medicinal plants for over 1,500 years.
Pedanius Dioscorides was a Greek physician who lived in the first century AD. He came from Anazarbus, a town in Cilicia, in what is now southern Turkey, then part of the Roman Empire. Little is known of his life beyond what he says in his own book. He traveled widely, and it is often said that he served as a physician with the Roman army, though scholars debate this. Around the years 50 to 70 he wrote De Materia Medica ('On Medical Material'), a work in five books describing about six hundred plants, along with animal products and minerals, used to make medicines, with notes on how to prepare them and what illnesses they were thought to treat. He organized his entries by their effects on the body rather than alphabetically. The book was copied, translated into Latin, Arabic and other languages, and illustrated for centuries; a famous illustrated copy, the Vienna Dioscorides, was made around 512. It remained a central reference for herbal medicine into the early modern period.
Pedanius Dioscorides is also an author in the library: author page and works.
Faith: Faith not well documented. Source: Wikipedia
Key dates
- 1st century AD Lifetime; from Anazarbus in Cilicia
- c. 50–70 Writes De Materia Medica
- c. 512 The Vienna Dioscorides manuscript made
Fun facts
- The yam plant's genus, Dioscorea, is named after him, and so is a butterfly, the bush hopper Ampittia dioscorides. (Source: Dioscorides (Wikipedia))
Read about them
Grades 9–12
- De Materia Medica · In the library
More lives
Archimedes · Aristotle · Aulus Cornelius Celsus · Euclid · Galen · Herophilus
Notes: His dates are approximate, and whether he served with the army is debated.