Magnus arkhiatros (90 – 130 CE)
G, The ̄r. Pis. 12 – 13 (14.261–263, 267 K.), records his antidote (employing amo ̄mon,
cinnamon, kostos, malabathron, and Indian nard), revising an antidote from
A and D (Magnus is not Gale ̄n’s contemporary, the practitioner
De ̄me ̄trios, 14.261 K., contra Kroll). He may be the same as M T.
RE 14.1 (1928) 494 (#29), W. Kroll.
PTK
Magnus of Emesa (ca 300 – 400 CE)
Wrote treatises on prognostics, fevers, and urines; his identification with the contemporary
Alexandrian iatrosophiste ̄s M N is plausible but still unproved. Magnus’ De
Urinis survives in Arabic and partly in revised and excerpted Greek (G 19.574–601 K.;
Ideler; Moraux 68–74). The treatise, although largely restating content from H
and Gale ̄n, presents one of the first arrangements of that material into a systematic com-
pendium of types of urine and their differences, based on color, consistency, and sedimenta-
tion, marking a genuine advance, since examination of urine plays a relatively small part in
Gale ̄nic medicine. To the extent to which Magnus’ work thereby helped elevate urine
to the far more central place it subsequently enjoyed in medical practice, De urinis had
a major influence on diagnostic uroscopy in later Byzantine antiquity and the medieval
Latin West. It was a principal source and model for Theophilos Protospatharios (9th c.)
in his own De urinis, who nonetheless criticizes Magnus’ incomplete account (Ideler 1
[1841/1963] 261–262); it is also cited in the work of the same title by Io ̄anne ̄s Aktuarios
(13th c.; Ideler 2 [1842/1963] 5) with much the same complaint. Magnus’ De urinis was
translated into Arabic, extensively excerpted, and included in later Byzantine compilations
(Baader).
Ed.: Ideler 2 (1842/1963) 307–316.
Diels 2 (1907) 59–60; G. Baader, “Early medieval Latin adaptations of Byzantine medicine in Western
Europe,” DOP 38 (1984) 251–259; P. Moraux, “Anecdota Graeca Minora VI: Pseudo Galen, de
Signis ex urinis,” ZPE 60 (1985) 63–74; BNP 8 (2006) 175 (#1), V. Nutton.
Keith Dickson
Magnus of Ephesos (50 – 100 CE)
Greek physician from Ephesos (C A, Acut. 3.114 [CML 6.1.1, p. 360]),
after A A (G, Diff. Puls. 3 [8.674 K.]). He preceded A-
and A (ibid. and Cael. Aurel., Acut. 2.57–58 [CML 6.1.1, p. 166]), who
refuted his theories (Gale ̄n, Diffic. Resp. 1 [7.763 K]; Diff. Puls. 3 [8.640, 642, 646, 648, 650,
674 K.]; Caus. Puls. 1 [9.8, 18, 21, 22 K.]). Moreover, Gale ̄n (Diff. Puls. 3 [8.641 K.]) credits
Magnus with writing a work “on the [medical] discoveries after Themiso ̄n’s time,” prob-
ably T L, whereas A P (in Gale ̄n) preserves
one of his medical formulae. Nevertheless, the name is very common, and compare his
near-contemporaries M , M P, and M
T, some of whose recipes might belong to this Magnus. Although Gale ̄n cites
Magnus as a Pneumaticist (above), Caelius Aurelianus considered him a Methodist
(above). However, his theories and their refutation by Arkhigene ̄s seem clearly to indicate
MAGNUS OF EPHESOS