An Annotated Digital Catalogue and Index of Medicinal Plants and Herbal Drugs in the Galenic Corpus

• Applicant: Dr. Maximilian Haars
• Subject Area: History of Science ; Greek and Latin Philology ; Pharmacy
• Term: since 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 442430932

The writings of the Roman physician Galen of Pergamum (129 - c. 216 AD) form the largest ancient corpus of medical works. They are the basis of the most persistent tradition of medical education in European history. The aim of the interdisciplinary project is to develop a digital encyclopedia for all medicinal plants (including complete and annotated references) in the Galenic Corpus (= CG), in order to make available the extensive and hitherto difficult to access medical knowledge to the scientific community, and to provide a terminological basis for future translations of Galenic works.The individual lemmata (altogether approx. 1.500) of the lexicon will include the following sections:1. substantiated identification of the phytonyma in the CG on the basis of relevant lexicographical, archaeobotanical and botanical reference works and special literature (numerous modifications and revisions of the Liddle-Scott-Jones articles are necessary),2. synonyms included in the CG,3. pharmacognostic information (e.g. details of the parts of the plants used, for taste testing, etc.) in the CG,4. medical indications in the CG,5. substitutional instructions (“quid-pro-quo”) in the CG.All passages in the CG are given (in total about 30.000, with evidence of the source, if they concern Galen’s excerpts from older pharmacologists). The basis for this catalogue is an already created index, which is based on extensive research with the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae (TLG, University of Irvine) and with the indices of the CMG editions. On the one hand, the research project will provide many new insights into Galenic pharmacology, and, on the other hand, it will offer a synopsis of scientific results, which have been published in widely dispersed publications of different disciplines, and have therefore not been available for research in a suitable manner. This will provide a future indispensable tool for many different disciplines, which will also motivate subsequent research projects and promote the exchange of disciplines involved. The publication is intended as a digital open-access document that links to digitized secondary literature and digital text-editions (e.g. Corpus medicorum graecorum).

• DFG Programme: Research Grants