DIOSCORIDES, PEDACIUS or PEDANIUS:

By: Richard Gottheil, M. Seligsohn

Greek physician of the first century. His "Materia Medica" is mentioned in a Hebrew medical work called "Midrash ha-Refu'ot," attributed to Asaf ben Berechiah, but compiled from Syriac sources in the tenth or eleventh century. In the tenth century Ḥasdaiibn Shaprut, minister of finance to 'Abd al-Raḥman III., assisted in the translation of the work into Arabic. But no Hebrew translation is known; the only quotations found being reproductions of quotations in other authors. An attempt was made in Salonica to translate into Hebrew Mathioli's commentary on Dioscorides.

Only one short work of Dioscorides has been translated into Hebrew, by a French Jew, Azariah Bonafoux. It is an alphabetical index of drugs which can be substituted one for another. The translator says that he found the manuscript under the Greek title of 'Αντιβαλλομένων, which he translated "Temu rat ha-Sammim."

G. M. Sel.