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The Plato's Medicine in Medical Writings of Anonymus Londinensis

• Δαμπάσης, Ι. Ν.

The physician Menon, one of Aristotle's pupils, was the author of the first History of Medicine, called «Menoneia», according to Galen's and Plutarch's testimonia. This book it was supposed to be lost, until Kenyon's announcement, in 1892, that in the British Museum was a papyrus of over 1900 lines, probably of the 2nd century A. D., a great part of which appeared to be taken from Menoneia, and Diel's publication, in 1893, under the headlines «Anonymi Londinensis ex Aristotelis iatricis Menonis et aliis medicis eclogae» ; event that was greeted as a precious acquisition of the historical medical littérature. In the second part of this papyrus, the Menoneia proper, the anonymus scribe, probably a student taking notes or a doxographer, quotes amongst auther authorities and Plato's medical thoughts, chiefly taken from Timaios, although the insertion of Stoic and Aristotelian ideas is beyond doubt. Generally speakink, the paper of Anonymus Londinensis is a source of valuable information concerning the status of medicine in the 2nd century A. D. ; the theories of previously lived prominent physicians and philosophers - physicians are described and even commented in an eclectic manner, although the influence of the methodic school is evident throughout.

• Languages and Literature

• Classical philology