Guest post from John Martin Rare Book Room

At UIowa’s Hardin Library for the Health Sciences

NICANDER OF COLOPHON (flourished 138-130 BCE) Theriaka; Tou autou Alexipharmaka [Greek title transliterated]. Theriaca; Eiusdem Alexipharmaca. Printed by John Soteris in 1530. 21 cm tall.

April is National Poetry Month, so we are highlighting the classic works of Nicander of Colophon. Nicander was a physician poet from the 2nd century BCE. We know he wrote many different works, but only two complete examples have survived.

The two works, Theriaca and Alexipharmaca, deal with poisons and venoms. Poems like these were thought to make scientific content and concepts easier to understand and remember. Nicander, though, was more interested in form and style, not necessarily accuracy. Indeed, his poems can be difficult to read and he did not seem to have much knowledge at all of toxicology. As Gow and Scholfield note in their Poems and poetical fragments, “his contorted style and fantastic vocabulary put him beyond the reach of scientists unless they are also Greek scholars…” (p. xi).

Nicander was born and raised in Clarus in western Asia Minor (near the larger Colophon, in what is now Western Turkey) during the reigns of the last kings of the Attalid Dynasty of Pergamon. Clarus was home to a large temple devoted to Apollo and there are several references to Nicander’s family as priests in the cult, including perhaps Nicander himself.

The longest of the hexameter poems, Theriaca, covers venomous animals. Nicander describes the animals, the symptoms associated with a bite or sting, and pharmacological recipes for treating them. The Alexipharmaca covers poisons that have been ingested orally from animals, plants, or minerals and their antidotes. Much like Theriaca, Nicander breaks the entries into a description of the poison, the symptoms, and recipes for antidotes. Nicander is also thought to be the first to suggest the use of leeches in a medicinal context, although many scholars believe he borrowed heavily from the Greek-Egyptian physician Apollodorus (fl. 250 BCE).

The first known print copies of the poems are in the 1499 edition of Dioscorides' De materia medica. The poems are also bound together in this item with the first Latin translation made by Johann Lonitzer (1499-1569). Lonitzer was a classical languages scholar, poet, and professor at Marburg in Germany. As can be seen from the image above, the cover of the book is cut from a piece of vellum manuscript waste (parchment from an older, handwritten work used in the binding of another book). It is heavily stained with ink spilled from an inkpot (tip of the hat to Collections Conservator Beth Stone for identifying the stain). Perhaps an apprentice or student faced the wrath of their instructor for using the book as a stand for their ink?

It also appears the cover was given conservation treatment at some point before we acquired it. As part of this treatment, the cover was removed. However, when it was reattached, the covers were reversed! Thus, the spine title is now upside down and the ink stains on the front actually originated on the back. Another example of all the amazing stories our books have to tell us beyond what is written on the page. Other than the mistreatment at the hands of the nameless, ink-spilling writer/illustrator, the book is in great condition. And other than some minor staining in the back (ink that bled through from the spill on the cover) and on the edges, the paper is especially in good shape. If you stop by the open house tonight, you’ll have a chance to take a look for yourself.

–Damien Ihrig, Curator of the John Martin Rare Book Room