Pharmacologie et Pharmacopée dans le monde gréco-romain: étude de quelques substances et végétaux choisis

Abstract

This article provides information on the practice of pharmacology and pharmacopoeia through the study of medico-dietetic treatises which propose healing or prevention recipes against specific diseases, recipes from votive epigraphic testimonies in honor of Asclepius, and literary documents of famous ancient botanists. The article is intended to provide technical pharmacological information concerning fruits, vegetables and substances of vegetable or animal origin, even if there is an absence of dosage. We present different kinds of foods whose healing qualities and virtues are still recognized today. In spite of the complexity of ancient medicine, it shows the important place occupied by this therapy by plants, “natural medicine”, in the Greco-Roman society where pharmacology and pharmacopoeia coexisted, where the mysterious silence of plants combined with the incantatory words of humans to bring forth all the healing virtue known to them.