lilNNEAN SOCIETY OP LONDON. 3 



received his education at Tarsus and Alexandria. Details of his 

 life are wanting, but it seems certain that he was physician to the 

 Komau legions, and accompanied them into nearl}"^ every country on 

 the north of the Mediterranean. He was a contemporary of Caius 

 Plinius the elder, living under the emperors Nero and Vespasian, 

 and dying about a.d. 77. 



His five books on Materia Medica seem to have suffered at the 

 hands of editors, and it is usual to find two additional books 

 tacked on, which are obviously not the work of Dioscorides. The 

 text, even in the earlier MS. Itnown, seems to be derived from still 

 earlier resources, possibly taking shape about the close of the 3rd 

 Century. The celebrated ' Codex Aniciae Julianse ' reproduced in 

 collotype, and brought before the Society at its last meeting, is 

 stated to have been written about a.d. 512, though freely ascribed 

 to 40 years earlier (472). It w as acquired by Busbecq, Austrian 

 Ambassador to Turkey, and finally reached Vienna, where it 

 now is. 



A later ' Codex Neapolitanus ' is also preserved in the Imperial 

 Library at Vienna, but of about the 7th Century. 



In 1763-73, engravings from the Viennese ' Codex jSeapoli- 

 tanus ' were prepared by the Librarian Gerhard Swieten, the 

 botanic portion under the care of Baron N. J. Jacquin. In March 

 1764, a set so far as engraved was sent to Linnaeus for his advice ; 

 they were to be guarded carefully and shown to no one. The 

 work was stopped at or soon after Swieten's death in 1772; four 

 copies are known, two are at Vienna : the best copy has 410 

 figures, 1-383 are from the ' Codex Neapolitanus,' 384-410 from 

 the ' Codex Anici^ Julianse ' : the second copy has only 407 

 figures. The copy at Oxford, given or lent to John Sibthorp in 

 1786, has 409 figures; the Linnean Society's copy has only 142, 

 but these are annotated by Jacquin ; possibly the promised con- 

 tinuation was never sent. 



No author has been more commented on than Dioscorides, and 

 of the score of commentators none has reached the reputation of 

 P. A. Mattioh, whose works, with or without illustrations, have 

 reached an extraordinary number of editions in various languages. 

 His bibliographer, Moretti, states that he possessed 40 editions, 

 and knew of 11 others in various libraries. Dr. John Sibthorp 

 (1758-1796), Professor of Botany at Oxford, may be said to be 

 the last of the line, the splendid ' Hora Grseca,' provided for by 

 him, and edited by our founder, Sir J. E. Smith, being finished 

 in 1840 under the care of Dr. John Lindley. 



Additional remarks were made by Mr. F. N. Williams, who 

 referred to a note in the ' Journal of Botany,' xliv. (1906) p. 304j 

 concerning the determination of " Telephium " in the Codex 

 now under review to be Cerinthe major, Linn.; he also spoke 

 of the various notes at different times, in Armenian and Turkish, 

 and of the help he had derived from Sir George Watt in these 

 researches. 



The Treasurer (Mr. Horace W. Moncktou) and Dr. Otto Stapf 



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