SP741
PLANTS WITH DIURETIC ACTION ACCORDING TO DIOSCURIDES MATERIA MEDICA IN THE GLAGOLITIC OLD CHURCH SLAVONIC MEDICAL FOLIA FROM SINAI

Introduction and Aims: Since the famous find of 1975 in Saint Catherine's monastery to the Slavic holdings of app. 43 manuscripts another 43 units were added, the earliest being six Old Church Slavonic codices and fragments of the 11^th century written in the Glagolitic script.

Methods: We studied a fragment of three small bifolia with medical prescriptions entitled “Cosmas’ healing”, loosely inserted between folia 141-142 of the Psalterium Demetrii Sinaitici (Sin. slav. 3/N) and presently counted as ff. 141a-f. On ff. 141ar-cv. which were dated to the third quarter of the 11^th century.

Results: The structure of the treatise in only 6 instances resembles the ancient botanical texts which were divided according to the materia medica used. In 16 cases the Sinai prescriptions start with the symptom, illness or affected organ, following the medieval iatrosophia. Reading carefully the transliterated text we could trace eight plants with an action on the kidneys as described by Dioscurides, namely: 1. Aron against gout; 2. Arktion or Agrimony against dysuria. the Sinai fragment mentions it for antitumor treatment; 3. Raphanus as catharctic. Rosenschon comments its use in folk medicine as choleretic; 4. Prason cephaloton as diuretic but also nephrotoxic. The Sinai treatise describes it as an anti-fever; 5. Suppositorium with salt and honey. A concoction of honey and quinces has a diuretic action according to Dioscurides; 6. Lapathon for renal stones according to Dioscurides. In the treatise as treatment of equine wounds; 7. Thymos herpyllon as diuretic; and Rosenschon reports it as purgative; 8. Helenium as diuretic, too, while the treatise mentions it as anti-pertussis, but Rosenschon reports it as diuretic in folk medicine.

Conclusions: Eight plants with renal action have been identified in the Sinai prescriptions. Only one of them is reported as such in the original treatise, besides comments in the extant literature on the diuretic and anti-infective urinary actions of two other plants in folk medicine (3). There is hardly any mention of the diuretic properties of the rest seven plants although they had been continuously reported as such in almost all the medical botanologies for at least twelve centuries before the composition of the Glagolitic fragment, making it impossible for their author to ignore them. Thus, we hypothesize that the preserved prescriptions (which end abruptly in an unfinished word) are the remnant of a somewhat larger collection, in which these properties were described in passages with nephrological conditions. Our findings support the claim that the Sinaitic Glagolitic medical folia offer the oldest surviving reference on diuretic plants in a Slavic language, antedating by far the well-known Chilandar Medical Codex which contains many renal references.