A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

1. A native of Tarsus in Cilicia, of whose date it can only be certainly determined that he lived in or before the first century after Christ, as Galen speaks of him as having lived sometime before his own age. He was the author of a celebrated antidote, called after his name Philonium, Φιλώνειον. He embodied his directions for the composition of this medicine in a short enigmatical Greek poem, preserved by Galen, who has given an explanation of it (De Compos. Medicam. sec. Loc. ix. 4, vol. xiii. p. 267, &c.). This physician is supposed by Sprengel (Hist. de la Med. vol. ii.) and others to have been the same person as the grammarian, Herennius Philon, but probably without sufficient reason. His antidote is frequently mentioned by the ancient medical writers, e. g. Galen (Ad Glauc. de Meth. Med. 2.8, vol. xi. p. 114, Comment. in Hippocr. "Epid. VI." 6.5, vol. xvii. pt. ii. p. 331, De Compos. Medical. sec. Loc. 8.7, vol. xiii. p. 202, De Locis Affect. 2.5, vol. viii. p. 84, De Meth. Med. 12.1, vol. x. p. 818), Aretaeus (De Cur. Morb. Chron. 2.5, p. 335), Paulus Aegineta (3.23, 7.11, pp. 440, 657), Oribasius (Synops. iii. Eupor. 4.136, pp. 54, 675), Aetius (2.4. 28, 3.1. 32, 3.2. 1, 4.1. 107, pp. 382, 478, 511, 660), Joannes Actuarius (De Meth. Med. 5.6, p. 263), Marcellus (De Medicam, cc. 20, 22. pp. 329, 341), Alexander Trallianus (pp. 271, 577, ed. Basil.), Nicolaus Myrepsus (De Compos. Medicam. 1.243, 383, pp. 412, 437), Avicenna (Canon, v. l. l. vol. ii. p. 278, ed. Venet. 1595). This Philon may perhaps be the physician whose collyrium .is quoted by Celsus (De Medic. 6.6, p. 119.)