The Summary to Eustathius the Son is a medical handbook in nine books by Oribasius of Pergamon, the physician of the emperor Julian, written in the later fourth century CE for his son Eustathius, also a physician. It condenses Oribasius' own Medical Collections, a large compilation of extracts from earlier physicians, above all Galen, into a work for practical use, and some sections name their authorities, among them Galen and Dioscorides.
Book I opens with a table of contents for all nine books and treats the keeping of health: exercise, evacuations, sexual activity, air, sweating, baths and purgatives. Book II sorts the simple drugs by their powers, graded by degrees of heating and cooling; Book III gives the compound drugs in Oribasius' own use, salves, plasters, poultices, pastilles, eye-salves and antidotes; Book IV arranges foods and waters by what they do to the body. Book V covers pregnancy, infants and the regimen of each age; Book VI fevers, their signs and their prognosis; Book VII wounds and ulcers; Book VIII diseases of the head; and Book IX the remaining diseases, from spitting of blood to stones of the kidneys and bladder and sciatica.
The nine books survive in Greek, and a Latin translation was made in late antiquity.
Oribasius of Pergamon Summary to Eustathius the Son: summary and contents (PDF)
Oribasius of Pergamon Summary to Eustathius the Son: summary and contents (Markdown)
Contents
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Αʹ Book I
Opening with a table of contents for all nine books, the first book of Oribasius' handbook for his son deals with keeping the body healthy: exercise, general and local evacuations in men and women, sexual activity, air, sweating, and natural and artificial baths. Its account of purgatives weighs colocynth, aloe and epithymon by what each draws off, and it closes on mustard plasters and reddening agents, with a first-person note on using pigeon dung for sciatica, headache and gout.
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Βʹ Book II
Simple drugs are sorted here by their powers: lists of drugs neither heating nor cooling, then of those that heat, graded by degree, and further lists such as the foods and drugs that promote or check semen. A section on choosing simples tells the physician how to recognise good agaric, acacia and aloe, and the book ends with the order in which opium, myrrh, frankincense, bdellium and other ingredients go into a plaster as it boils.
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Γʹ Book III
Recipes for the compound drugs in Oribasius' own use fill this book, beginning with the tetrapharmakon of wax, bull's tallow, resin and pitch and other salves that bring wounds to suppuration, flesh and scar. Plasters, poultices of bread, meal and bran for inflammation and for hardened liver and spleen, pastilles, eye-salves and antidotes follow, and the book ends with perfumes and fumigations: a sleep-inducing incense of storax, mandrake and opium, and the kyphi of the moon.
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Δʹ Book IV
Foods are arranged here by what they do to the body: those that thin the humours, from garlic, onions and cress to rock fish and small mountain birds; those that cause wind, such as fresh figs, milk and sweet wines; and those that cleanse and clear obstructions of the liver and spleen. The book closes on drinking water, judging water from ice and snow the worst and describing how foul water is improved by boiling, mixing with wine or straining.
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Εʹ Book V
The complaints of pregnancy come first in this book of Oribasius' handbook: nausea, heartburn, loss of appetite, the craving to eat earth and swollen feet, each with its regimen and remedies. It goes on through the care of infants and of every age, of teeth, ears and eyes, and of those chilled or overheated by the weather, and ends with excerpts from Galen on phlegm gathered in the stomach and on correcting bad temperaments of the stomach and other parts.
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Ϛʹ Book VI
Fevers and their signs make up the sixth book. It opens with the krisima sēmeia, when they ought to appear and how the best krisis is recognised or foretold, and with prognosis from the urine, then treats the kinds of fever, among them the semitertian, a mixture of tertian and quotidian. Fainting follows, and the book ends with nosebleeds that come only in drops, where the writer quoted pricked the vessels inside the nostrils to draw more blood.
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Ζʹ Book VII
Wounds and ulcers are the matter of the seventh book, starting with the simple wound, which heals if its lips are bound together, and the drying applications, from wine to oak and plantain leaves, that close larger ones. Wounded nerves follow, with a warning against sharp drugs on a nerve laid bare, and the book ends with an illness bred by thick humours, treated with boiled viper flesh and theriac, after which the skin may peel like a snake's slough.
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Ηʹ Book VIII
Diseases of the head open the eighth book: loss of memory, lethargy and phrenitis, both bled at the outset, and the nightmare, explained as a sickness and not the visit of a demon. Headache and hemicrania, head-shaking, sunstroke in children and the hair diseases alopecia and ophiasis follow, with excerpts named from Dioscorides, and the book ends with Theophrastus on reviving those who have hanged themselves or nearly drowned.
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Θʹ Book IX
Spitting of blood, from catarrh or from chilling of the breathing organs, opens the last book with a day-by-day regimen of bleeding, rubbing, baths and the drug made from vipers. Stones and inflammation of the kidneys and bladder follow, with the note that kidney stones form in the elderly and bladder stones in children, and the book ends with clysters for sciatica and two compound potions, of four and of seven ingredients, to be taken daily for a year.