Rerum Medicarum Libri Quatuor

Priscia'nus, Theodo'rus

a physician, who was a pupil of Vindicianus (Rer. Med. iv. praef. p. 81. ed. Argent.), and who therefore lived in the fourth century after Christ.

He is supposed to have lived at the court of Constantinople, and to have attained the dignity of Archiater. He belonged to the medical sect of the Empirici, but not without a certain mixture of the doctrines of the Methodici, and even of the Dogmatici.

Works

He is the author of a Latin work, entitled, Rerum Medicarum Libri Quatuor, which is sometimes attributed to a person named Octavius Horatianus. The first book treats of external diseases, the second of internal, the third of female diseases, and the fourth of physiology, &c. The author, in his preface, speaks against the learned and wordy disputes held by physicians at the bedside of the patient, and also their putting their whole reliance upon foreign remedies in preference to those which were indigenous. Several of the medicines which he mentions himself are absurd and superstitious; the style and language of the work are bad; and altogether it is of little interest and value.

Editions

It was first published in 1532, in which year two editions appeared, one at Strasburg, fol., and the other at Basel, 4to. Of these the latter is more correct than the other, but not so complete, as the whole of the fourth book is wanting, and also several chapters of the first and second books. It is also to be found in Kraut's Experimentarius Medicinae, Argent., fol., 1544, and in the Aldine Collection of Medici Antiqui Latini, 1547, fol., Venet.

A new edition was commenced by J. M. Bernhold, of which only the first volume was ever published (1791, 8vo. Ansbach), containing the first book and part of the second.

On Diet

A work on Diet, which is sometimes attributed to Theodorus Priscianus, is noticed under THEODORUS.

Further Information

See Sprengel, Hist. de la Méd. ; Choulant, Handb. der Bücherkunde für die Aeltere Medicin.

[W.A.G]