NICANDER, a Greek physician of the empirical sect, and also a poet and grammarian, was a native of Colophon, and, according to some authors, had been a priest of Apollo at Claros in Ionia. The date of his birth is uncertain; but it is probable that he died about a century before the commencement of our era. His father’s name was Damnaeus, and he was sometimes called an Aetolian, because he appears to have lived during many years in Aetolia, and to have written a history of that country. This physician occupied himself much with materia medica and pharmacy, and composed his works in verse. The greater part of his [7:16:200]writings, however, which are said to have been numerous, is no longer extant. One of his poems, entitled Georgica, which he dedicated to Attalus III. the last king of Pergamus, is cited with commendation by Cicero in his treatise De Oratore (lib. i. c. 16). In some others of his lost works, which were also in verse, he appears to have described the various poisons and their antidotes; at least such is the' statement of Eustathius and Athenaeus. Of his various poems two only remain; the Theriaca and Alexijìharmaca.

The Theriaca, though composed without critical discernment, contains, nevertheless, some remarkable facts in natural history. In it may be found an exact but somewhat prolix description of the combats of the rat of Pharaoh, or mangouste {viverra ichneumon), with the serpents, the flesh of which is eaten by that quadruped with impunity. The author also treats of scorpions, which he divides into nine species; a division adopted by some modern naturalists. His description of the amphisbaena accords with that wh ich has been given by Linnaeus in his Αmcenitates Academicae (tom. i.). Then follow some very curious observations on the effects of the poison of different kinds of serpents, each of which produces different phenomena. Nicander thought he had ascertained that the poison of serpents is concealed in a membrane surrounding the teeth; an opinion which is not very far from the truth. He describes a species of serpent which always takes the colour of the soil on which it crawls, and which he denominates ♯ , ^ψ. He was the first who distinguished night-butterflies from those which are seen only during the day; and to the former he gave the name of phalaenae, which they still bear. This poem contains a great number of popular fables, which, however, were all firmly believed at a period when the science of natural history was in its infancy. Thus we find it gravely stated that wasps are produced by the putrefied flesh of horses. As to the poem entitled Alexipharmaca, it may be considered as a continuation of the preceding. The effects of poisons are there explained with tolerable accuracy. They are divided into animal, vegetable, and mineral; but under the last head Nicander only mentions white lead, and litharge, which is also an oxide of lead.

Of these two works there have been numerous editions. The first, which is in folio, was published at Venice in 1499; and the next, in quarto, appeared at Cologne in 1530, with an interpretation of the Theriaca, and various commentaries on the Alexipharmaca, by an anonymous annotator. Of both there have been various Latin translations, some into prose and others into verse; but the principal are those of Lonicer, Cologne, 1531, in 4to; Erycius Cordus, Francfort, 1572, in 4to; Jean de Gorris, Paris, 1549, in 8vo; and Pierre-Jacques Stève, Valence, 1552, in 8vo. Lastly, the works of Nicander were translated into French by Jacques Grévin, Antwerp, 1567, 1568, in 4to. In the Imperial Library at Vienna there is a beautiful manuscript copy of both poems, ornamented with figures of venomous animals, and accompanied by a commentary from the pen of the sophist Euteichnius, which has been printed in the Greek edition of Nicander published by J. G. Schneider, Halle, 1792, in 8vo. Demetrius Phalereus, Theon, Plutarch, and Diphilus of Laodicea, all wrote commentaries upon the Theriaca ; and there are still extant learned Greek scholia on both poems, which Vossius has ascribed to Diphilus, though upon what authority we know not. Besides the poems above mentioned, Nicander also wrote in verse Ophiaca, or a treatise on serpents; Hyacinthia, or a collection of remedies; and a commentary on the Prognostics of Hippocrates. He was likewise the author of five books of Metamorphoses, some verses of which have been preserved by Tzetzes; and he wrote in prose several historical works, one of which, being the history of

Colophon, is cited by Athenaeus, whilst the others mentioned are accounts of Aetolia, Boeotia, Thebes, and a general description of Europe. This Nicander has sometimes been confounded with a grammarian of the same name, a native of Thyatira; and Vossius, in giving the titles of the works written by both, has not been careful to distinguish clearly their respective productions. Mérian, in his essay on the Influence of the Sciences on Poetry (see Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Berlin for 1776), cites the works of Nicander, as affording evidence of the incongruity which exists between the language of poetry and the nomenclature of science; and stigmatizes the author of the Theriaca as a therapeutic versifier, who wrote lines for the apothecaries, and a mere grinder of anecdotes, who sung of toads, scorpions, and spiders. In the Bulletin de Pharmacie for 1810, however, Μ. Cadet de Gassicor has given an analysis of the works of Nicander, affording materials for a more accurate judgment than the exaggerated and burlesque representations of Mérian. (a.)