BAITHAR’S PLANT-COLLECTING 187 
over all the Orient for the sake of collecting herbs,” was court 
physician in Egypt 1238-and died in Damascus 1248. He de- 
scribed 1,400 plants ; a selection was published by Dietz in 1833 
at Leipsic (derived from MSS. at the Escurial, at Madrid, Paris and 
Hamburg), entitled ‘“‘Elenchus materiae medicae Ibn Baitharis 
Malacensis.” Sprengel remarks, Geschichte, 1: 240, publ. 1807, 
“ Baithar alone among Arabs went to nature instead of relying on 
Nestorian and Greek writings,” and again, 1: 238, “I grieve over 
nothing more than this history should be written without Baitha- 
ridian aid’’—not even Dietz’s selection from Baithar having yet 
been published. 
Ibn Alkotbi or Malajesa, born in Armenia, lived in Bagdad, a 
physician and a botanist of talent and sagacity ; author of what Dietz 
termed an epitome of Ibn Baithar ; but it was really much more, 
says Meyer, 3 : 243; Sprengel had deemed it a compend of Dios- 
corides of the 1oth century by Abul Fadli. Three MSS. exist 
in Paris and two at Oxford; one of the former was completed (by 
the author himself, Meyer) Nov. 8, 1311, as the MS. attests. 
Various LATE GREEK WRITERS 
Mention of Aster Atticus by rearrangement from Dioscorides 
is to be looked for next in Photius, in Simeon Seth, in Stephanos 
Magnetes, and in Nicolaos Myrepsos. 
XXIX. Puorrus, made patriarch of Constantinople 858 and 
banished 886, who remained thereafter engaged in studies in a mon- 
astery in Armenia, prepared, in his Myriobiblion,* 280 volumes of 
analyses and extracts, of which the 178th contained Dioscorides, 
volumes 216-9 Oribasius, 221 Aétios, 278 Theophrastus. 
XXX. Simeon Setu, or Sethi, an obscure but able writer, 
who seems to have been a physician from Antioch, and a high 
official of the palace at Constantinople, was styled magister or 
Protobestiarch, and dedicated his work on plant-remedies and 
foods + to the Emperor Michael VII. (Ducas) who reigned 1071-8. 
* Printed, the Greek with Latin translation, by Andr, Schottus of Antwerp, at 
Rheims, 1653; the Greek alone, with recension by Bekker, Berlin, 1824. 
Tt Simeon Seth’s «« Syntagma ... de cibariorum facultate,”’ first published in Latin 
translation by Gyraldus of Ferrara, Basle, 1538; again, edited by Monthesaurus of 
Verona, Basle, 1561; and published in the Greek original with a Latin translation, 
Paris, 1658, by Bogdanus ; all of which rare works were in Meyer’s library. 
