Theodorus Priscianus was a physician at Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

 during the 4th century, and the author of the Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 work Rerum Medicarum Libri Quatuor.

Career

Priscianus was a pupil of the physician Vindicianus, fixing the period of his life in the fourth century. He is said to have lived at the court of Constantinople, and to have obtained the dignity of Archiater

Archiater

An archiater was a chief physician of a monarch, who typically retained several. At the Roman imperial court, their chief held the high rank and specific title of Comes archiatrorum.The term has also been used of chief physicians in communities...

. He belonged to the medical sect of the Empirici

Empiric school

The Empiric school of medicine was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. They were so called from the word empeiria because they professed to derive their knowledge from experiences only, and in doing so set themselves in opposition to the Dogmatic school...

, but not without a certain mixture of the doctrines of the Methodici

Methodic school

The Methodic school of medicine was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. The Methodic school arose in reaction to both the Empiric school and the Dogmatic school...

, and even of the Dogmatici

Dogmatic school

The Dogmatic school of medicine was an ancient school of medicine in ancient Greece and Rome. They were the oldest of the medical sects of antiquity. They derived their name from dogma, a philosophical tenet or opinion, because they professed to follow the opinions of Hippocrates, hence they were...

.

Works

The Rerum Medicarum Libri Quatuor, or "Medical Matters in Four Books", is sometimes attributed to a person named Octavius Horatianus. The first book treats of external diseases, the second of internal, the third of female diseases, and the fourth of physiology, etc. The author, in his preface, speaks against the learned and worthy disputes physicians held at the bedside of the patient, and against their reliance on foreign remedies in preference indigenous ones.

It was first published in 1532, in a folio

Folio

Folio may refer to:* Folio , a book size* A particular edition of a book printed on folio pages, such as the First Folio of William Shakespeare's plays* A leaf of a book: see Recto and verso* Folio , a sans-serif typeface...

 edition at Strasburg, and a quarto

Quarto

Quarto could refer to:* Quarto, a size or format of a book in which four leaves of a book are created from a standard size sheet of paper* For specific information about quarto texts of William Shakespeare's works, see:...

 edition at Basel. Of these the latter is more correct than the other, but not so complete, as the whole of the fourth book is wanting, and also several chapters of the first and second books. It also appeared in Kraut's Experimentarius Medicinae, Argent, folio, 1544, and in the Aldine Collection of Medici Antiqui Latini, 1547, folio, Venet. J. M. Bernhold published a new octavo

Octavo

Octavo to is a technical term describing the format of a book.Octavo may also refer to:* Octavo is a grimoire in the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett...

edition in 1791, at Ansbach, but only printed a first volume that contained the first book and part of the second.

Priscianus is generally identified as the author of a short Latin work, entitled Diaeta sive de Rebus Salutaribus Liber, first published in 1533. fol. Argent., with Hildegardis Physica, and in a separate form in 1632. octavo. Hal. ed. G. E. Schreiner. The manuscripts and these editions of his work simply identify the author as Theodorus.

Criticism

Of the Rerum Medicarum, Dr. William A. Greenhill writes, "Several of the medicines which Priscianus mentions are absurd and superstitious; the style and language of the work are bad; and altogether it is of little interest and value."