Papyrus Michiganensis 17.758 (350 – 370 CE)
Sometime in the middle of the 4th c., a practicing physician in Roman Egypt hired a
local scribe ( perhaps in Oxyrhynchos, perhaps Antinoopolis: the papyrus’ provenance is
uncertain) to extract pharmaceutical recipes from circulating Greek-language medical
books. The nameless physician and his anonymous scribe were both quite literate, evinced
by corrections in two hands: Youtie believes that addenda written more rapidly with
abbreviations (“ligatures”) are those of the doctor, but the scribe also inserted some of his
own corrections; the texts copied and augmented are usually familiar from formal pharma-
cological works, whether extant (D), or as known through later compactions
(e.g., H in G, O, etc.), with simples and compounds suggesting con-
sistency across the long history of ancient drug lore. Occasionally, there are quotations of
otherwise unknown formulas (e.g. the rue-plaster from Book 2 of some Dionusios: Youtie
22 – 23). The papyrus includes full dosages and timing of application as usual in papyri and
in Gale ̄n, etc., but it also shows a crudely applied “common knowledge” of “how much” of
X or Y should be used. Youtie meticulously matches the substances with the better known
and much more copious accounts of the philosopher-physicians, indicating a kind of “filter-
ing down,” a variety of cookbookery; and yet this and other papyri also reveal a “filtering
up” of information derived from folk medicine ( paralleled with sparse data in the PGM).
“Drugs” include substances of multiple employment, e.g. P.Mich. Inv. 21G (Youtie 56–58)
with its kolle ̄s: the “plaster” is sticky (as it should be) but the term suggests the “flour-paste,
made from the best wheaten-flour and the finest meal to glue books... is helpful for those
who spit blood, when the flour-paste is diluted with water, warmed, and administered to the
patient a spoonful at a time” (Dioskouride ̄s MM 2.85.3, as Youtie adduces).
Ed.: L.C. Youtie, The Michigan Medical Codex (P. Mich. 758 = P. Mich. Inv. 21), with introd. by A.E.
Hanson (1996) = P.Mich. 17.
Andorlini Marcone (1993).
John Scarborough
Papyrus Mil. Vogl. I.14 (100 – 200 CE)
Fragment discussing the nerves and how they carry pneuma to organs as needed, and how
that explains diseases.
M.-H. Marganne and P. Mertens, “Medici et Medica,” in B. Mandilaras, ed., Proc. of the XVIII Inter.
Congr. of Papyrology (1988) 1.105–146 at 123, #2361.
PTK
Papyrus Mil. Vogl. I.15 (100 – 200 CE)
Fragment of a medical catechism, with two questions on apoplexy and one on elephantiasis,
adjacent as in C 3.25–26, and -G, D. M. (19.346–347 K.).
Tecusan (2004) fr.14.
PTK
P M. V. VIII.309 => P
PAPYRUS MICHIGANENSIS 17.758