page_title: De materia medica
section_title: On Arabic medicine
hierarchical_section_title: De materia medica / Influence and effectiveness / On Arabic medicine
caption_attribution_description: English: Wild Cucumber in Arabic Dioscorides. 13th century, Persia
context_page_description: De materia medica is a pharmacopoeia of medicinal plants and the medicines that can be obtained from them. The five-volume work was written between 50 and 70 CE by Pedanius Dioscorides, a Greek physician in the Roman army. It was widely read for more than 1,500 years until supplanted by revised herbals in the Renaissance, making it one of the longest-lasting of all natural history books.
  The work describes many drugs known to be effective, including aconite, aloes, colocynth, colchicum, henbane, opium and squill. In all, about 600 plants are covered, along with some animals and mineral substances, and around 1000 medicines made from them.
  De materia medica was circulated as illustrated manuscripts, copied by hand, in Greek, Latin and Arabic throughout the mediaeval period. From the sixteenth century on, Dioscorides' text was translated into Italian, German, Spanish, and French, and in 1655 into English. It formed the basis for herbals in these languages by men such as Leonhart Fuchs, Valerius Cordus, Lobelius, Rembert Dodoens, Carolus Clusius, John Gerard and William Turner.
context_section_description: Along with his fellow physicians of Ancient Rome, Aulus Cornelius Celsus, Galen, Hippocrates and Soranus of Ephesus, Dioscorides had a major and long-lasting effect on Arabic medicine as well as medical practice across Europe. 
  De materia medica was one of the first scientific works to be translated from Greek into Arabic. It was translated first into Syriac and then into Arabic in 9th century Baghdad.
caption: Wild Cucumber in Arabic Dioscorides. 13th century, Persia
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