Simplicia and Composita

Simplicia is a redirect to this article. For the former US car brand of the same name, see Simplicia Automobile Company .

The term Simplicia (simple things) or Simplizien explains itself as the opposite of the term Composita (compound things). In pharmacy and medicine, Simplicia means medicinal products made from individual parts of plants , animals or minerals that were previously not taken mixed with others in one recipe. Composita (like the antidotes in the past) are composed of several parts. The products that arise when Simplicia or Composita are treated by crushing , by the action of heat or by solvents were referred to as Praeparata .

history

In the 1st century Dioscurides and Pliny described only Simplicia in their pharmacopoeia. Her work was received by authors from late antiquity ( Pseudo-Apuleius ) and by medieval authors (such as in Macer floridus or Circa instans ). The Liber iste also contains such non-compound medicinal products, whereas the Antidotarium Nicolai presents extensive compounds .

In Roman times it became more and more popular to create new composites from the mixture of Simplicia. The compositions by Scribonius Largus were also created in this context .

In the 2nd century Galen wrote about both Simplicia. as well as about Composita Galen influenced the Arab authors. In the 2nd book of the Canon of Medicine , Avicenna treated simple medicinal products (Simplicia) and in the 5th book compound medicinal products (Composita).

In 1500 Hieronymus Brunschwig called his “ Small Distilling Book ” “Liber de arte distillandi de Simplicibus”. The book of the right art to distil the only thing. ”In it he described the production of distillates from individual parts of plants or animals. In 1512 his “Great Distilling Book” with the title “Liber de arte Distillandi de Compositis” followed. The book of goods art to distill the Composita ... “ In this book he mainly described the distillation from mixtures of Simplicia.

The fathers of botany polemicized against the “Arabs” and accused them of preferring compound medicines to simple medicines. This polemic was poisoned by the feuds between the humanists and the “Arabists”.

In the 18th century, the English doctor William Withering introduced the digitalis into the official pharmacopoeia. He had chosen it as a simplicium from a compound folk remedy (Compositum). With which herbs the digitalis was combined in this folk remedy, Withering did not share:

“In 1775 I was asked my opinion about a family recipe for the treatment of dropsy. I was told that it had long been used as a secret drug by an old woman in Shropshire who would sometimes have cured if the general practitioners had stopped working. [...] This medicine was composed of twenty or more different herbs, but it was not very difficult for one experienced in these matters to see that the effective herb could not be anything other than the thimble. "

- William Withering : An account of the foxglove, and some of its medical uses: with practical remarks on dropsy, and other diseases. Birmingham 1785. Reprint in German translation. Boehringer Mannheim 1929.

literature

• Willem Frans Daems: Nomina simplicium medicinarum ex synonymariis medii aevi collecta. Semantic studies of the specialist vocabulary of high and late medieval drug studies. New York / Leiden 1993 (= Studies in Ancient Medicine. Volume 6).
• Hans-Joachim Poeckern: The Simplizien in the Nuremberg Dispensatory of Valerius Cordus from 1546 and their explanations in the footnotes printed in italics, with special consideration of the Dioscurides notes and plant descriptions of Valerius Cordus. Mathematical and scientific dissertation Halle an der Saale 1970.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , p. 115.
2. ↑ Julius Berendes : Des Pedanios Dioskurides from Anazarbos medicament theory. Stuttgart 1902.
3. ↑ Naturalis historia . Edition R. König et al. Artemis, Zurich 1990–2004.
4. ↑ Johannes G. Mayer: 'Circa instans' German. Observations on the Leipzig Codex 1224, the most extensive herbal book to date in German before the printing press. In: Würzburg medical history reports. Volume 13, 1995, pp. 67-73, here: pp. 67-69.
5. ↑ Peter Dilg: Medicinal Treasure . In: Karl-Heinz Leven (Hrsg.): Ancient medicine, a lexicon . Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-406-52891-0 , Sp. 98/99 .
6. ↑ De alimentorum facultatibus . (Edition Kühn, Volume VI, pp. 453-748).
7. ^ De simplicium medicamentorum temperamentis ac facultatibus. (Kühn XI 379 - XII 377).
8. ^ De compositione medicamentorum secundum locos. (Kühn XII 378 - XIII 361). De compositione medicamentorum per genera. (Kühn XIII 362-1085)
9. ↑ Alfred Siggel : Al-Kindî's writing on the compound remedies. In: Sudhoff's archive. Volume 37, 1953, pp. 389-393.
10. ^ Print Venice approx. 1500 digitized
11. ^ Print Venice approx. 1500 digitized
12. ↑ Otto Brunfels . Contrafeyt Kreütterbuch 1532, preface. Brunfels 1532 digitized
13. ^ Leonhard Fuchs . Errata recentiorum medicorum, LX. Numero adiectis eorundem confutationibus. Hagenau 1530.
14. ^ Lorenz Fries : Defensio medicorum principis Avicennae . Strasbourg 1530.