Born c. AD 40 – Died c. AD 90

Dioscorides was a Greek physician, born in Anazarbus, a small town near Tarsus in Cicilia (now south central Turkey). He studied medicine under Areios at Tarsus and became a physician and soldier in the Roman armies during the time of the Emperors Nero, Caligula and Claudius.

As a surgeon with the armies of Nero he benefited from the ease of travel across wide stretches of territory under the control of the Roman Empire at that time. He visited Italy, Gaul, Spain and North Africa.

During his travels had the opportunity to study the medicinal properties of many p lants and minerals, incorporating the description of nearly six hundred plants in his famous pharmaceutical manuscript De Materia Medica. This work was written in five books around the year 77 and deals with approximately 1,000 simple drugs. The original Greek manuscript was translated into at least seven other languages and described most drugs used in medical practice until modern times. For over 1,500 years his work was considered to be the final authority on the pharmaceutical use of herbs and plants. However, by the mid-16th Century, his message that investigation and experimentation were crucial to pharmacology began to be recognised and modern research into medicines began.

The first book of De Materia Medica deals with aromatic plants, oils and ointments, trees and shrubs. In the second book, dealing with animals, animal parts, milk and dairy products, cereal and sharp herbs, the medicinal and dietetic value of animal derivatives, such as milk and honey is described. The third book deals with roots, juices, herbs and seeds; the fourth with herbs and roots not previously mentioned; and the fifth with wines and minerals. In this book he gives a synopsis of such chemical drugs as mercury (with directions for its preparation from cinnabar), arsenic (referred to as auripigmentum, the yellow arsenic sulfide), lead acetate, calcium hydrate and copper oxide. He refers to sleeping potions prepared from opium and mandragora as surgical anaesthetics. These five books are sometimes accompanied by a sixth book dealing with poisons, and on rare occasions by a seventh and eighth book dealing with animal bites and venomous animals.

The original manuscript was copied many times over the centuries and inevitably in time contained numerous scribal errors. The tendency for European scholars and physicians to liken local plants with those discussed in the original text produced misidentification, sometimes with disastrous results. However, in due course the work was re-examined on several fronts and comparisons were made of different versions to try and eliminate scribal errors. Later still, the scholars and physicians began looking at the plants themselves, often following in the footsteps of Dioscrorides, to find the plants originally described, or they studied the works of the many other writers in an effort to identify the plants mentioned.

Since an original copy of Dioscorides' herbal has never been found, it cannot be certain that illustrations were included. However, in 512 a Byzantine artist illustrated the work for presentation to Juliana Anicia, the daughter of Emperor Anicius Olybrius. The work contains almost 400 full-page paintings of plants and small ones of birds, the quality of which was not surpassed for many years.

The first printed edition of De Materia Medica was published somewhere around the late 1470s and a French translation was printed in 1559 by a French physician, Martin Mathee. Mathee based his translation on the Latin translation of Jean Ruel, which included an abridged translation of some of the commentaries of Pier Andrea Mattioli. Mattioli considered himself to be the foremost expert on the works of Dioscorides and while conducting his medical career he also began translating these works, adding commentaries and his own observations and opinions on the references to the plants.

Contraception and Abortion

In 77 AD when Dioscorides wrote De Materia Medica, he recommended the use of oral contraceptives. He prescribed a number of herbs for birth control, including white poplar, cabbage flowers, pepper, ivy and asplenon (which is believed to be a fern). He refers to 'the Chaste Tree which destroys generation as well as provokes menstruation', which would imply that it was not only a contraceptive, but also an abortifacient. He used the term 'contraceptive' for several plants to be used as vaginal suppositories, e.g., juniper berries crushed and put on the penis or the vulva before insertion, but cabbage flowers, pepper and ivy also acted as an abortifacient in both oral and suppository insertion.

A large number of plants are abortifacients, for example the cultivated lupine, according to Dioscorides, extracts the menses and foetus; rue extracts the menses ( without mentioning the foetus); birthwort drunk with pepper and myrrh expels the menstrua and embryo/foetus.

'The root of the alpine plant barrenwort causes contraception and its leaves beaten and drunk in 20.5g/0.7 oz. in wine after the menstrual period for five days preserves inconception'.

Great arum will abort a newly conceived foetus.

Soranus recommended many plants as oral contraceptives and abortifacients, but Dioscorides prescribed only silphium and pepper as contraceptives, however he identified opopanax as 'expelling the menstrua and killing the foetus'. He gave no birth control usages for rocket, parsnip, pomegranate or rue, the latter which he referred to as an emmenagogue.

The various contraceptives that Dioscorides recommended have a basis in fact according to medical knowledge. The strictly oral contraceptives that he added to the list compiled by Soranus are white willow, white poplar, cabbage leaves, ivy and barrenwort. The use of white willow and the white poplar bark has probable verification in modern science and in medical studies. Karzynski reported that estriol is found in the willow and willow bark was found to interfere with ovulation. White poplar and willow are members of the same family and with the added ingredient of the kidney of a mule were recommended as a contraceptive and may have a connection with the modern anti-fertility agent today, known as the 'pill', consisting of estrogen and progestin. Estrogen is taken from the urine of a pregnant mare and would also be present in a pregnant horse's kidney tissue as well as in the urine. However, in Dioscorides' prescription he instructs the use of the kidney of a mule, not a pregnant mare. If he did, indeed mean mule, bearing in mind that a mule is sterile, eating a mule's kidney could be thought to cause sterility, in the same way that if a man should eat a bull's testicles and this could encourage virility.

It is not always easy to determine exactly what Dioscorides intended. With regard to barrenwort, he said that the root produces atokios, meaning temporary lack of conception. However, in classical and medieval writings, it is said to cause sterility. Dioscorides noted that a solution of five drachmas of barrenwort's perforated leaves in wine, drunk for five days after the termination of menstruation causes 'inconception'. The suggestion is that this would be for a temporary period only, perhaps a month, or the menstrual cycle.

Cabbage flowers and seeds were also used in a suppository as a postcoital contraceptive (atokios). Modern studies state that drugs from cabbage seeds have abortifacient properties.
Ivy is a contraceptive and Dioscorides stated:

The uppermost part is pulverized and given as a vaginal suppository to provoke menstruation, And being drunk in the amount of one drachma after the cleansing period (of a woman) it is a contraceptive.

Pepper is applied as a vaginal suppository 'after coitus'. On cabbage, ivy and pepper he appears to be confused about the difference between contraceptives and abortifacients, but he did make precise distinctions, stating that pepper 'dries out' the foetus/embryo, so distinguishing between a postcoital contraceptive and an abortifacient. Pepper, cabbage seeds and ivy were recommended throughout the medieval period and modern medical references report ivy's usage as a contraceptive and as an abortifacient.

The last two examples of his contraceptives are the fern Pteris aquilina, which he also called an abortifacient, and the chaste tree.

The chaste tree is not a tree, it is a small aromatic bush no bigger than three metres high with leaves similar to those of a willow and lilac flowers on spikes. Athenian women celebrated the festival of the Thesmophoria during October. To honour Demeter, they remained chaste during the celebrations and strewed boughs of the chaste tree beneath their beds.

One study shows that the chaste tree has no contraceptive effect, but other studies indicate that it has abortifacient properties. Chaste tree seeds were put in vaginal suppositories, drunk with pennyroyal it cleaned the uterus and cleared away headaches. It would appear that women celebrated this shrub because in enabled them if not to be chaste, to be non-pregnant as long as they knew how to use it.
Vaginal Suppository Contraceptives

In a report in 1986, researchers orally administered 200 mg of an extract of juniper root to laboratory rats; with the result that implantation was blocked in 60 percent of the cases. Dioscorides recommended vaginal insertion and may well have been successful. Juniper berries were used as a uterine stimulant until the last century and juniper seeds in animal tests block implantation in 60-70 percent of the cases. Juniper berries act as an emmenagogue affecting the menstrual cycle and oils from the leaves are uterine stimulants. The oil causes relaxation and inhibition of movement which could lead to an abortion.

It is not clearly defined whether a substance is more effective used as a suppository or taken orally, either in modern medicine or in the past. Some evidence shows that hormonal drugs, specifically estrogen and progesterone are more effective if introduced directly in the uterus rather than taken by mouth. In modern tests from Daphne, there has been uterine irritation and some damage when used as a suppository.

The lily was another plant Dioscorides referred to as a suppository. He said that a drug made from the root 'is applied as a pessary with honey to draw down the embryo'. Iris, too, appears to be a plant whose use could result in abortion, but its effectiveness was limited and was not widely used as an antifertility drug in early medicine. The use of garlic was also recommended as a contraceptive or abortifacient, but was not widely used.

Listed below are some of the Root Medicines Dioscorides suggested for birth control use in Book 3 of De Materia Medica:

Greek Name	Modern ID	Family	Birth Control Use
Agaricon	A fern, perhaps Formes officinales Bredasola, Polyporus sulphures Bull	Polyporaceae	Provokes menstruation (abortifacient)
Ra	Rheum rhaponticum (Rhubarb)	Polygonaceae	None, but helps suffering in the womb
Gentiane	Gentiana lutea L.	Gentianaceae	Abortifacient
Aristolocheia	Aristolochia pallida L. (Birthwort)	Aristolochiaceae	Abortifacient
Kentaureion Makron	Centaurea centaurium L Giant century plant)	Compositae	Abortifacient
K.Mikron	Centaurium umbellatum (Feverwort)	Gentianaceae	Abortifacient

Pedanius Dioscorides