Marcellus Empiricus

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Marcellus Empiricus , also Marcellus Burdigalensis , was a Roman writer at the turn of the 4th / 5th. Century AD He came from Gaul (whether from Burdigala ) and held high state offices at the Roman imperial court under Theodosius I and under the Eastern Roman emperor Arcadius .

Marcellus wrote a medical prescription book ( De medicamentis ) intended for laypeople in 36 chapters, which is full of superstitious or magical means. The introduction is a letter from Marcellus to his sons as well as several apocryphal letters, the end 78 hexameters. The main sources were Scribonius Largus ( Compositiones medicamentorum ), conveyed via the Pseudo-Apuleius , which was also used directly as a template , and the Medicina Plinii with elements from Galen's work, as well as folk medicine content from the Gallo-Romance area. The vulgar Latin plant names are valuable.

Contents from the work of Marcellus can be found in the Physica Plinii alongside those that come directly from the Medicina Plinii .

Text editions and translations

  • Janus Cornarius : Marcelli ... de medicamentis empiricis, physicis ac rationabilibus Liber. Froben, Basel 1536 (digitized version)
  • Max Niedermann (Ed.): Marcelli De medicamentis liber. Teubner, Leipzig / Berlin 1916, after Max Niedermann ed. by Eduard Liechtenhan . 2 volumes. Berlin 1968 (= Corpus medicorum latinorum. Volume 5).
  • Max Niedermann (Ed.): About remedies . 2nd edition by Eduard Liechtenhan . Translated by Jutta Kollesch u. Diethard Nickel. Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1968.

literature

  • Ernst Heinrich Friedrich Meyer . History of botany . Volume 2, Bornträger, Königsberg 1855, pp. 299–315: Marcellus Empiricus (digitized version )
  • Eduard Liechtenhan : Linguistic remarks on Marcellus Empiricus . Werner-Riehm, Basel 1917. Also dissertation Basel.
  • Wolfgang Meid, Peter Anreiter: Medicinal plants and healing sayings. Gaulish language testimonies from Marcellus of Bordeaux. Linguistic and pharmacological aspects . Edition Praesens , Vienna 2005, ISBN 3-7069-0322-9 .
  • Gundolf Keil : Marcellus Empiricus. In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil, Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 889 f.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Ferdinand Peter Moog: Medicine and Poetry (antiquity). In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 920-929; here: p. 927.
  2. ↑ Christina Becela-Deller: Ruta graveolens L. A medicinal plant in terms of art and cultural history. (Mathematical and natural science dissertation Würzburg 1994) Königshause & Neumann, Würzburg 1998 (= Würzburg medical historical research. Volume 65). ISBN 3-8260-1667-X , s. 74 and 235.
  3. ↑ Christina Becela-Deller: Ruta graveolens L. A medicinal plant in terms of art and cultural history. (Mathematical and natural scientific dissertation Würzburg 1994) Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 1998 (= Würzburg medical-historical research. Volume 65). ISBN 3-8260-1667-X , p. 235.
personal data
SURNAME Marcellus Empiricus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Empiricus, Marcellus
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Roman medicine writer
DATE OF BIRTH 4th century
PLACE OF BIRTH Bordeaux (unsure)
DATE OF DEATH 5th century