Anonymus Londinensis

Anonymus Londinensis
Anonymus Londinensis (or Anonymus

Londiniensis) is the name given to an anonymous
Ancient Greek author of approximately the 1st century
AD, whose work On Medicine (Ancient Greek:
Ἰατρικά, Latin: De Medicina) is partially preserved in
a papyrus in the British Library (PBrLibr inv. 137 =
P.Lit.Lond. 165). It ranks as the most important
surviving medical papyrus and provides important
information about the history of Greek medical
thought.
Contents The papyrus, column 5, lines 23-

45. In lines 35-37, the author
On Medicine quotes Aristotle/Meno:
Menoneia "Hippocrates says that gases
(phusai, breaths, flatus) are the
On physiology
causes of disease, as Aristotle has
Editions and translations stated about him." This is followed
by a more specific explanation of
Notes how these gases arise from the
Further reading residues (perissōmata, lines 42-
43) of undigested food. The
External links account is closely related to On
Breaths in the Hippocratic Corpus.
On Medicine
While only fragments survive of some portions of the text, the papyrus containing the
work of Anonymus Londinensis is exceptionally well preserved, with 3.5 meters of the roll
largely intact, containing almost 2,000 lines of text in 39 columns. It seems to be an
unfinished draft (breaking off in mid-column) in the hand of the author, who compiled,
digested, and manipulated various sources as he wrote, so that we may even observe the
process of his thinking as he writes.[1]
The text consists of three parts: a series of definitions related to the affections of the body
and soul (cols. 1-4), a doxographical part (cols. 4-20), and a physiological part (cols. 21-
39).
Menoneia
:
The doxographical part is a survey of 5th and 4th century writers on the causes of disease,
following a source called "Aristotle" but usually ascribed to Aristotle's pupil Meno and
identified with the title Menoneia mentioned in Plutarch's Quaestiones convivales VIII.ix
(http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/p/plutarch/symposiacs/chapter8.html#section87), 377c.
This work would have been part of the early Peripatetic project to survey all of the most
important fields of knowledge. The views of some twenty physicians are reported, with
Plato cited more than any other authority, even Hippocrates. The authorities are
classified into two groups, one holding that disease is caused by residues of food, the
other by disturbances in the balance of the bodily elements.
Hermann Diels had suggested that Anonymus Londinensis knew this Peripatetic
doxography through the Areskonta of Alexander Philalethes, but there is little plausible
justification for this view.[2]
On physiology
The final, incomplete, section of the work discusses physiology in a manner influenced by
dialectical argument. Only the views of Aristotle and subsequent authors are considered,
including Herophilus (who appears in a comparatively positive light), Erasistratus (who is
attacked together with his followers), Asclepiades of Bithynia, and Alexander Philalethes.
This interesting section contains ideas about vitality and motion, nutriment, the various
emanations from the body, digestion, veins and arteries, and the invisible "pores."[3]
Editions and translations

The papyrus was first described by Frederic G. Kenyon in 1892. Diels produced the first
edition of the Greek text, which was published in 1893 by the Prussian Academy of
Sciences as volume III, part 1, of Supplementum Aristotelicum. A German translation of
Diels' text by Heinrich Beckh and Franz Spät was published in 1896 (Anonymus
Londinensis: Auszüge eines Unbekannten aus Aristoteles-Menons Handbuch der
Medicin und aus Werken anderer älterer Aerzte (https://books.google.com/books?id=e
mwIAAAAIAAJ)). W.H.S. Jones reprinted Diels' Greek text together with his own English
translation and commentary in The Medical Writings of Anonymus Londinensis,
Cambridge University Press, 1947 (repr. Amsterdam 1968; repr. Cambridge 2011,
ISBN 0-521-17069-9). A new Teubner edition of the Greek text by Daniela Manetti was
published in 2011 (ISBN 3110218712), while Antonio Ricciardetto published a critical text
in 2013 and reprised it as a Greek-French bilingual text in the Collection Budé series in
2016. An edition by Jackie Pigeaud has also been announced.
Notes
1. D. Manetti, "'Aristotle' and the role of doxography in the Anonymus Londiniensis
(PBrLibr Inv. 137)," in van der Eijk 1999, p. 97
2. Heinrich von Staden, "Rupture and continuity: Hellenistic reflections on the history of
medicine," in van der Eijk 1999, p. 164
3. W.J.Bishop "Anonymus Londinensis" (review of Jones 1947), British Medical Bulletin
:
3. W.J.Bishop "Anonymus Londinensis" (review of Jones 1947), British Medical Bulletin
5 (1947-8), p. 387
Further reading
Markus Asper, Griechische Wissenschaftstexte: Formen, Funktionen,
Differenzierungsgeschichten, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2007, pp. 293-304
Philip J. van der Eijk (ed.), Ancient histories of medicine: essays in medical
doxography and historiography in classical antiquity, Leiden: Brill, 1999
External links
Greek text (Diels 1893): BBAW online edition (http://cmg.bbaw.de/epubl/online/wa_an
on_lond.html); via Google Books, c.1 (https://books.google.com/books?id=rjgNAAAA
YAAJ), c.2 (https://books.google.com/books?id=yXYIAAAAIAAJ), c.3 (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=-qFfAAAAMAAJ), c.4 (https://books.google.com/books?id=vqRf
AAAAMAAJ)
French translation (http://hdl.handle.net/2268/83182)
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Anonymus Londinensis (or Anonymus

Contents The papyrus, column 5, lines 23-

Editions and translations

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?

This page was last edited on 9 May 2021, at 08:09 (UTC).

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