The antiepileptic Materia Medica of Pediacus Dioscorides

Journal of Clinical Neuroscience : Official Journal of the Neurosurgical Society of Australasia
M J Eadie

Abstract

Since it was written about the middle of the 1st Century AD, and up to comparatively recent times, the great Herbal, or Materia Medica, of Dioscorides provided medicine with its chief source of information about what were then considered therapeutic substances. The work contained data on various materials of botanical, biological and mineral origin which were claimed to provide benefit to sufferers from epilepsy, though often with no clear underlying rationale for their use. Some of these materials continued to be used as antiepileptic remedies over many centuries till they were finally recognised to be without useful effect in the disorder. The longest survivor amongst the Dioscoridean antiepileptic remedies was a rather esoteric one, viz. two stones taken from the belly of a young swallow during the rising phase of the moon and also whilst the swallow's parent birds were absent from the nest. The stones, or one of them, were worn against the skin of the seizure sufferer. The use of the swallow stones for epilepsy was recommended as late as in the writings of Thomas Willis (1675).

References

Nov 1, 1992·Epilepsia·A Vanzan, F Paladin

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Citations

Aug 16, 2015·Epilepsy & Behavior : E&B·S M Elsas
Jun 16, 2009·British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology·Lionel D Lewis
Jul 8, 2010·Langenbeck's Archives of Surgery·Mile Ignjatović
May 7, 2013·Expert Opinion on Investigational Drugs·Lokesh PathakAshish Dhir
Jul 1, 2017·The American Journal of Chinese Medicine·Chengyao MaYong Chen
Jan 13, 2015·Homeopathy : the Journal of the Faculty of Homeopathy·Heiner Frei
Jan 7, 2017·BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine·Xue-Peng GongGuang Du
May 23, 2020·Basic & Clinical Pharmacology & Toxicology·Weitao YanJie Yan

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