Main description:

The present work offers an extensive introduction to the text and transmission of the ancient Latin version of the medical works "Therapeutica" and "On Fevers" of the great sixth-century Greek doctor Alexander of Tralles. The importance of the Latin Alexander in medieval medicine in the West is seen in the richness of both mainstream and secondary, excerpting manuscript-traditions. The tradition is such that the reconstructed Latin text promises to be a much more important witness to the Greek text than the Greek is to the Latin, and of course a reliable edition is a prerequisite for any systematic work on questions such as the provenance of the translation and the Latinity of the translator(s). The volume comprises an introduction to Alexander; an outline account of his works in Greek compared with the Latin version; a description of the Latin manuscript copies, and a proposed reconstruction of the genetic relations between them; some preliminary remarks on the Latinity of the Latin Alexander; and a sample edition, with translation, critical apparatus, and extensive notes, of the chapters on coughing at the start of Book 2.