This book is a study of three iatrosofia (the notebooks of traditional healers) from the Ottoman and modern periods of Greece. The main text is a collection of the medical recipes of the monk Gymnasios Lauriōtis (b. 1858). Gymnasios had a working knowledge of over 2,000 plants and their use in medical treatments. Two earlier iatrosofia are used for parallels for Gymnasios’s recipes. One was written c. 1800 by a practical doctor near Khania, Crete, and illustrated by a second hand. The second iatrosofion dates to the sixteenth century; ascribed to a Meletios, the text survives in the Codex Vindobonensis gr. med. 53. The contents of these and other iatrosofia are predominantly medical, with many of the remedies taken from folk medicine, classical and Hellenistic pharmacological writers, and Galen.

The book opens with a biography of the monk Gymnasios and his recipes and then a description of the Cretan and Meletios iatrosofia. The iatrosophia, their role in Greek medical history, and the methods of healing are the subject of chapter 2. The Greek text of Gymnasios’s recipes are accompanied by a facing English translation. A commentary offers for each of Gymnasios’s recipes passages (translated into English) from the two other iatrosophia to serve as parallels, as well as an analysis of the pharmacopoeia in the medical texts. The book concludes with Greek and English indices of the material medica (plants, mineral, and animal substances) and the diseases, and then a general index.

This book is a study of three iatrosofia (the notebooks of traditional healers) from the Ottoman and modern periods of Greece. The main text is a collection of the medical recipes of the monk Gymnasios Lauriōtis (b. 1858). Gymnasios had a working knowledge of over 2,000 plants and their use in medical treatments. Two earlier iatrosofia are used for parallels for Gymnasios’s recipes. One was written c. 1800 by a practical doctor near Khania, Crete, and illustrated by a second hand. The second iatrosofion dates to the sixteenth century; ascribed to a Meletios, the text survives in the Codex Vindobonensis gr. med. 53. The contents of these and other iatrosofia are predominantly medical, with many of the remedies taken from folk medicine, classical and Hellenistic pharmacological writers, and Galen.

The book opens with a biography of the monk Gymnasios and his recipes and then a description of the Cretan and Meletios iatrosofia. The iatrosophia, their role in Greek medical history, and the methods of healing are the subject of chapter 2. The Greek text of Gymnasios’s recipes are accompanied by a facing English translation. A commentary offers for each of Gymnasios’s recipes passages (translated into English) from the two other iatrosophia to serve as parallels, as well as an analysis of the pharmacopoeia in the medical texts. The book concludes with Greek and English indices of the material medica (plants, mineral, and animal substances) and the diseases, and then a general index.

This three-volume set of essays is dedicated to Alain Touwaide, known for his far-reaching investigations in fields such as ancient medicine, botany, pharmacy, texts and manuscripts, the classical tradition, translation, the history of science, ethnopharmacology, and plant therapies. The essays, penned by 80 international scholars and researchers and written in six languages, are grouped into three broad categories—Manuscripts, Plants, and Remedies—to reflect Alain’s main areas of research. Each category is broken into subgroups, such as manuscripts, texts, and science; botany; gardens, materia medica, pharmacy, drugs, archaeology, medical traditions, and continuity of scientific knowledge in the East and West. The papers reach across many fields of scholarship, science, and medicine and are, necessarily and fundamentally, trans-disciplinary, trans-chronological, and trans-geographic. These volumes are not so much a Festschrift as an approach to Alain’s work through many disciplines and methods, a discussion of the current status of each field, and an opening into new perspectives.

This three-volume set of essays is dedicated to Alain Touwaide, known for his far-reaching investigations in fields such as ancient medicine, botany, pharmacy, texts and manuscripts, the classical tradition, translation, the history of science, ethnopharmacology, and plant therapies. The essays, penned by 80 international scholars and researchers and written in six languages, are grouped into three broad categories—Manuscripts, Plants, and Remedies—to reflect Alain’s main areas of research. Each category is broken into subgroups, such as manuscripts, texts, and science; botany; gardens, materia medica, pharmacy, drugs, archaeology, medical traditions, and continuity of scientific knowledge in the East and West. The papers reach across many fields of scholarship, science, and medicine and are, necessarily and fundamentally, trans-disciplinary, trans-chronological, and trans-geographic. These volumes are not so much a Festschrift as an approach to Alain’s work through many disciplines and methods, a discussion of the current status of each field, and an opening into new perspectives.

This book is a study of three iatrosofia (the notebooks of traditional healers) from the Ottoman and modern periods of Greece. The main text is a collection of the medical recipes of the monk Gymnasios Lauriōtis (b. 1858). Gymnasios had a working knowledge of over 2,000 plants and their use in medical treatments. Two earlier iatrosofia are used for parallels for Gymnasios’s recipes. One was written c. 1800 by a practical doctor near Khania, Crete, and illustrated by a second hand. The second iatrosofion dates to the sixteenth century; ascribed to a Meletios, the text survives in the Codex Vindobonensis gr. med. 53. The contents of these and other iatrosofia are predominantly medical, with many of the remedies taken from folk medicine, classical and Hellenistic pharmacological writers, and Galen.

The book opens with a biography of the monk Gymnasios and his recipes and then a description of the Cretan and Meletios iatrosofia. The iatrosophia, their role in Greek medical history, and the methods of healing are the subject of chapter 2. The Greek text of Gymnasios’s recipes are accompanied by a facing English translation. A commentary offers for each of Gymnasios’s recipes passages (translated into English) from the two other iatrosophia to serve as parallels, as well as an analysis of the pharmacopoeia in the medical texts. The book concludes with Greek and English indices of the material medica (plants, mineral, and animal substances) and the diseases, and then a general index.

This book is a study of three iatrosofia (the notebooks of traditional healers) from the Ottoman and modern periods of Greece. The main text is a collection of the medical recipes of the monk Gymnasios Lauriōtis (b. 1858). Gymnasios had a working knowledge of over 2,000 plants and their use in medical treatments. Two earlier iatrosofia are used for parallels for Gymnasios’s recipes. One was written c. 1800 by a practical doctor near Khania, Crete, and illustrated by a second hand. The second iatrosofion dates to the sixteenth century; ascribed to a Meletios, the text survives in the Codex Vindobonensis gr. med. 53. The contents of these and other iatrosofia are predominantly medical, with many of the remedies taken from folk medicine, classical and Hellenistic pharmacological writers, and Galen.

The book opens with a biography of the monk Gymnasios and his recipes and then a description of the Cretan and Meletios iatrosofia. The iatrosophia, their role in Greek medical history, and the methods of healing are the subject of chapter 2. The Greek text of Gymnasios’s recipes are accompanied by a facing English translation. A commentary offers for each of Gymnasios’s recipes passages (translated into English) from the two other iatrosophia to serve as parallels, as well as an analysis of the pharmacopoeia in the medical texts. The book concludes with Greek and English indices of the material medica (plants, mineral, and animal substances) and the diseases, and then a general index.

This three-volume set of essays is dedicated to Alain Touwaide, known for his far-reaching investigations in fields such as ancient medicine, botany, pharmacy, texts and manuscripts, the classical tradition, translation, the history of science, ethnopharmacology, and plant therapies. The essays, penned by 80 international scholars and researchers and written in six languages, are grouped into three broad categories—Manuscripts, Plants, and Remedies—to reflect Alain’s main areas of research. Each category is broken into subgroups, such as manuscripts, texts, and science; botany; gardens, materia medica, pharmacy, drugs, archaeology, medical traditions, and continuity of scientific knowledge in the East and West. The papers reach across many fields of scholarship, science, and medicine and are, necessarily and fundamentally, trans-disciplinary, trans-chronological, and trans-geographic. These volumes are not so much a Festschrift as an approach to Alain’s work through many disciplines and methods, a discussion of the current status of each field, and an opening into new perspectives.

This three-volume set of essays is dedicated to Alain Touwaide, known for his far-reaching investigations in fields such as ancient medicine, botany, pharmacy, texts and manuscripts, the classical tradition, translation, the history of science, ethnopharmacology, and plant therapies. The essays, penned by 80 international scholars and researchers and written in six languages, are grouped into three broad categories—Manuscripts, Plants, and Remedies—to reflect Alain’s main areas of research. Each category is broken into subgroups, such as manuscripts, texts, and science; botany; gardens, materia medica, pharmacy, drugs, archaeology, medical traditions, and continuity of scientific knowledge in the East and West. The papers reach across many fields of scholarship, science, and medicine and are, necessarily and fundamentally, trans-disciplinary, trans-chronological, and trans-geographic. These volumes are not so much a Festschrift as an approach to Alain’s work through many disciplines and methods, a discussion of the current status of each field, and an opening into new perspectives.