The "Prince of Medicine": Yūhannā ibn Māsawayh and the foundations of the western pharmaceutical tradition

This essay examines three medieval pharmaceutical treatises purportedly authored by Yūhannā ibn Māsawayh (anglicized to John Mesue) and traces their immense influence on the development of pharmacy in early modem Europe and the Hispanic world. Despite the importance of these works throughout the early modern period, Mesue is relatively unknown in the history of pharmacy and medicine, and his exact identity remains unclear. This essay argues that "Mesue" was most likely a pseudonym used by an unknown author of the Latin West and that the three works were crafted to meet the demands of the developing "medical marketplace" of late thirteenth-century Europe, where the manuscripts first appeared. At the same time, however, as the Arabic reference of the pseudonym suggests, these treatises were clearly products of the medieval Islamic world, including many innovations that would provide the basis for the theory and practice of pharmacy for centuries and arguably formed part of the artisanal epistemological influence on the Scientific Revolution.

European materia medica in historical texts: longevity of a tradition and implications for future use

AIM OF THE STUDY

This study uses historical texts in order to obtain information on the natural products used in traditional medicines in European/Mediterranean therapeutics over the last two millennia. The information obtained may lead to new directions in the area of drug discovery, as recent research has demonstrated the continued promise of looking to natural products for bioactive compounds. Researchers have increasingly turned to traditional medicines to provide clues as to which natural products to investigate, but the oral traditions on which much of this medical knowledge rests are often unstable. Thus researchers have been prompted to use historical medical texts, as this study does, to find potential sources of new drugs.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

This study uses twelve Mediterranean/European medical texts from the 5th century BC to the 19th century AD to compile a list of the most commonly used "simples"--or single action drugs substances--used in therapeutics in traditional European medicine. This list was then compared to present-day herbal pharmacopoeia as represented by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

RESULTS

This study finds that traditional European materia medica was based on a Dioscoridean tradition that lasted through the 19th century with remarkably little variation, but is significantly different from the present-day herbal pharmacopoeia according to the NIH.

CONCLUSIONS

The most prominent simples in the European/Mediterranean medical tradition can provide clues to further bioactive compounds that have not as of yet been fully exploited for their potential, but were clearly of great use in the past.

An herbal El Dorado: the quest for botanical wealth in the Spanish Empire

Few historians of science would associate the Spanish Empire with scientific innovation. However, recent research is increasingly demonstrating the Crown's strong commitment to scientific research, particularly in the areas of botany, natural history and medicine. Although this commitment began in the 16th century, it reached full development in the 18th, when Enlightenment ideals led to growing interest in exploiting natural resources in the New World. Interest in new resources, which offered alternatives to silver and traditional cash crops, focused largely on medicinal herbs indigenous to the Americas. Herbs that provided 'miracle cures' for age-old diseases would bring both material and moral wealth to the Crown, and were thus pursued vigorously throughout Spanish America. The result was a search for an 'herbal' El Dorado, reminiscent of 16th-century expeditions in search of a mythical land of gold--only in this case, medicine, not metal, was the goal.