Abstract
Nicolaos Myrepsos was a physician at the court of the Byzantine Emperor John III Dukas Vatatzes in Nicaea. In the late 13th century he wrote an extensive collection of medical recipes, entitled “Dynameron”. In its Latin translation, “Dynameron” was the basic pharmaceutical code of the Medical School in Paris until 1651. The aim of our study was to investigate the characteristics of nephrology-oriented prescriptions in “Dynameron”.
We studied all nephrology related prescriptions and recorded preparation and treatment indications. As nephrology-oriented was defined every prescription with nephrology related pharmacological action (diuretic) or indication (dysuria, nephritis, stones, sand, dropsy). The findings are given by descriptive statistics.
“Dynameron” consists of 48 sections, containing 2667 medical recipes, arranged alphabetically according to either their galenic or their indication. There were 320 (12.0%) prescriptions of nephrological interest and total number of plants in these prescriptions was 289. Indications among these nephrological prescriptions included dysuria 34.4%, urolithiasis 18.1%, dropsy (oedema) 26.5% or another kidney disease 48.4%.
Myrepsos lived at the court of the Empire of Nicaea and is well known as the author of “Dynameron”, the most extensive pharmacological collection of his time. In “Dynameron”, drugs of nephrological interest cover about 12% of the total number of recipes. It is a collection of recipes, with many ingredients, and it does not include any pictures of specific plants or animals. “Dynameron” incorporates apart from Myrepsos’ own medical experience, ancient scientific text references and gives a reliable picture of practicing medicine in the late Byzantine Empire.
Keywords: Drugs, Dynameron, Myrepsos, Renal disease