Serapion the Younger
Serapion the Younger was the author of a medico-botany book, i.e. a medical Herbal Book. The book is dated 12th or 13th century (estimated date). He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from Serapion the Elder, aka Yahya ibn Sarafyun, an earlier Arabic medical writer with whom he was often confused. His book was most likely written in Arabic, but no Arabic copy survives, and there is no record of a knowledge of the book among other medieval Arabic authors.[1] A partial copy survives from the medieval era in Hebrew. One historian of medieval Arabic medicine, Lucien Leclerc (died 1893), has speculated (with some evidence but not conclusive) that the book may have been written in Hebrew, not Arabic, even though it is very clearly heavily influenced by the Arabic medico-botany literature.[2] In any case, it was translated to Latin in the late 13th century and was widely circulated in late medieval Latin medical circles.[3]
Nothing about Serapion the Younger's biography is on record anywhere. In Serapion the Younger's only book, there is a quote from something by Ibn Wafid a medical writer who died around 1075. That puts a lower bound on when the younger Serapion wrote it. It is generally supposed he wrote in the 12th century. It remains possible he wrote in the 13th century. There is no record of the book anywhere until the late 13th century.[3][2][1] On the basis of his name he may have been a Christian because "Serapion" and its Arabic equivalents "Sarafyun" and "Sarabi" is a Greek name.[4] But since the identity of this Serapion is completely unknown, his name Serapion can be a pseudepigraph, whereby he was using the authority of the name of the earlier Serapion to give more credence to his own work. He calls himself the same name as Serapion the Elder called himself – the distinction between "Younger" and "Elder" was introduced later by others after it was realized that they cannot be the same person. Pseudepigraphy was common in the medieval era.
Serapion the Younger is known for one work, The Book of Simple Medicaments (where "simple" means non-compound: a practical medicine most often consisted of a mix of two or more "simples"). The work was written for physicians and apothecaries. The most original part of it is the Introduction, in which he classifies substances according to their medicinal properties, and discourses on their actions.[5] The remainder is a compendium of information on medicaments in the writings of Dioscorides, Galen, and earlier Arabic writers on medicaments, with some relatively brief supporting remarks by himself.[5]
The Latin translation was widely circulated among apothecaries in Europe in the 14th and 15th centuries under the title Liber Serapionis Aggregatus in Medicinis Simplicibus, or Serapionis Aggregatoris de Simplicibus Comentarii, or Liber de Simplicibus Medicamentis, or Liber de Simplici Medicina. There is also a manuscript of it in a Latin-to-Italian translation dated 1390-1404 which contains many colour illustrations of plants, and which historians have named the "Carrara Herbal". Medievally the work was sometimes coupled with the works of the elder Serapion, as they were often supposed to have been the same person.[5] After the invention of the printing press, editions were printed in Latin in 1473 (Milan), 1479 (Venice), 1525 (Lyon) and 1531 (Strasburg).[6] The edition of 1531 was supervised by the botanist Otto Brunfels and is regarded as a better edition.
Very many lengthy extracts from Serapion's book are recycled in a Latin medicine encyclopedia written by Matthaeus Silvaticus dated 1317, which was itself widely circulated in late medieval Latin and printed many times during the early decades after the invention of the printing press. In the early 16th century, leading new botany books by Peter Schöffer (first published 1484),[1] Leonhart Fuchs (1542),[6] Rembert Dodoens (1554),[7] and others, contain information that is explicitly attributed to the book of Serapion (the younger).
The primary historical interest in Serapion's book arises from the fact that it was widely read by medical-botany scholars in Latin in the years 1300 – 1550. The work is judged today to be considerably inferior to a work by Ibn al-Baitar with the same title dated about 1240. Ibn al-Baitar's work in Arabic was not translated to Latin during the medieval era.
References [edit]
- ^ a b c An Illustrated History of the Herbals, by Frank J. Anderson, year 1999 pages 40, 42 and 44.
- ^ a b Historie de la Médicine Arabe, by Lucien Leclerc, year 1870, volume 2 pages 152-156 and pages 470-471.
- ^ a b Les Noms Arabes Dans Sérapion, by Pierre Guigues, in Journal Asiatique year 1905 pages 473-480. Includes a discussion about estimating the date of Serapion's book.
- ^ George Sarton, 1962, Introduction to the history of science, page 229
- ^ a b c The Penny Cyclopaedia of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1841), volume 21 page 260.
- ^ a b The Great Herbal of Leonard Fuchs, by Frederick G. Meyer, et al., year 1999, volume one page 790.
- ^ A New Herball, or, Historie of Plants, by Rembert Dodoens, first published 1554.
- A year 1531 print of the Book of Simple Medicaments of Serapion The Younger in Latin: De Simplicibus Medicinis, also carrying the title Aggregatoris de Simplicibus Commentarii, by an author named in Latin as "Ioannis Serapionis Arabis" [English: John Serapion the Arab], 310 pages long, published in 1531. Says on its first page that it was translated to Latin by Abrahamo Judaeo and Symone Januensi.
