The Greek WebMD
σύμπτωμα
From the four humors to modern genetic engineering, medicine has seen many different iterations and theories. This project aims to feature the early starts of medicine. One of the very first books to document this type of medicine is the Vienna Dioscorides, which is a 6th century Byzantine text written in Greek. This book has a illustrated and enlightened version of an even earlier text, De Materia Medica, written approximately 70 AD by a greek named Dioscorides. In this book, hundreds of plants are explained by their medicinal properties and additionally, even more medicines derived from these plants. For approximately 1500 years, until the Renaissance, this was the text used by physcians and doctors all around the world. This was the only text you studied in medical school. Despite the inconsistancies and oddities in this text in light of modern medicine, this text saved countless lives. The original Vienna Dioscorides lives in Vienna, Austria (thus the name Vienna Dioscorides). In 1965, ADEVA printed high quality facsimiles in a very limited print run. One of these facsimiles calls Creighton University home in it's rare books room, and is the inspiration for my project. In this project, I have taken a few of those plants and categorized each of them by their medicinal properties and organized them into an interactive WebMD-like website. I urge you to not take any of these medicinal practices seriously, as this information is almost 2000 years old. If you need medical attention, please seek help from a medical professional from this millenia. To get started, either click "Browse Exhibits" in the drop down, or click on "σύμπτωμα" (symptoms in ancient greek).
