Pseudo-Alexander the Great, (356-323 B.C.)

Tractatus septem herbarum. [Anon.]. De herba lunaria. [Anon.] De auro potabili. Medical receipts. The first work is written in an informal semi-current italic hand 26 lines to a page; the remainder in a neat humanistic book-hand 36 lines to a page. A few initials in red. Fol. 1 In christi nomine amen.///Incipit tractatus. vii. herbarum alexandri [struck through, and superscribed by a 17th cent. hand 'Alberti']/magni./[H]Ic septem herbas et ipsarum. vii./uirtutes habemus ... 3v ... Et utere eis.//Explicit libellus septem herbarum sep/tem planetarum deo gratias amen. 4 HErba lunaria facit gambam altam/fere per tria brachia... 6 Et ista mi pater charissime habeatis qua/si de huiusmodi herba poteratis habere. 6v Ad guttam. (Receipt in Italian.) 7v In christi nomine///[A]urum potabile sic fit. R solis uel lune/in panicellis quantum uis... 11 ... Egritudi/nibus omnibus subuenit Si sciueritis uti. 11v Medical receipts in Latin. This MS. at one time must have formed part of a larger volume, as the leaves are foliated 74-93 by a 17th cent. hand.

Late 15th Century

1 volume 22 ll. (last 8 bl.). 8vo. 22 x 14 1/2 cm. Unbound.

Purchased 1923.

For a note on the authorship of the first work, cf. Thorndike, History of Magic and Experimental Science, Vol. II, pp. 233-234.

The tract on 'Aurum potabile' in this MS. seems to be a variant of that mentioned by Thorndike, op. cit. Vol. IV, pp. 58-60, where it appears to be part of the socalled 'Lullian Collection'.

Database description transcribed from S.A.J. Moorat, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts on Medicine and Science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (London: Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine, 1962-1973).