DCLP

Introduction

Treatise on the Brain.The text was written on the back of the roll after the front was used for accounts. Of the medical text on the verso, some 8 to 12 letters are preserved from ends of lines in the first of the two columns. The top, bottom, and left margins of the fragment (6.2 x 9.1 cm), however, are lost, and only the intercolumnar margin is preserved. Of the second column on verso, only an initial letter or so is preserved before the papyrus itself breaks off along the right margin. Although this second column seems to have been copied by the same scribe, he wrote each first letter large; four horizontal strokes are perhaps paragraphoi, intended as devices to articulate the text. In all likelihood, the anonymous author of this treatise was a philosophizing physician, rather than a medicalizing philosopher; he discusses the brain and its enclosing membranes, the veins, and the equation ‘man, a little world‘, ‘man, a microcosm‘. The scribe wrote what is called a formal, mixed style, inclining to the right. Bilinearity is observed and parallels for the hand are found in other literary and subliterary texts assigned a date in the third century.

(This papyrus has been digitally edited by Federica Nicolardi as part of the Project "DIGMEDTEXT - Online Humanities Scholarship: A Digital Medical Library based on Ancient Texts" (ERC-AdG-2013, Grant Agreement no. 339828) funded by the European Research Council at the University of Parma (Principal Investigator: Prof. Isabella Andorlini). The digital edition is mostly based on the previous editions (ed.pr. = H.G. Ioannidou, BKT IX 80v; ed.alt. = A.E. Hanson, GMP I 8).)

Apparatus

Notes

• 3-5.

  Perhaps, as suggested exempli gratia in the text, [κἀκ] τῶν [πλαγίων κατὰ τὸν ἐ]νκέφαλ[ο]ν με[ρῶν], 'and from the lateral parts along the brain', as in Galen De usu partium IX 8 or IX 14.

• 4.

  In all likelihood 'brain', ἐ]νκέφαλ[ο]ν, rather than 'the head', τὴ]ν κεφαλ[ή]ν (BKT IX).

• 5.

  The restoration of [ἔνδ]ειξιν seems certain, since only three letter-spaces are available, thus excluding ἀπόδειξις. ἔνδειξις in the meaning 'indication' appears more 400 times in the Galenic corpus, in over 60 of which occurrences as object of a form of the verb λαμβάνειν, usually not compounded.

• 5-7.

  Perhaps, as suggested exempli gratia in the transcript above, λαβόντα [ἔνδ]ειξίν [τινα ἀπὸ τοῦ ἐγκεφ]ά̣λου καὶ τ̣[ῶ]ν μη[νίγγων], 'taking some indication from the brain and its membranes‘. Other supplements are possible.

• 6.

  Likely is [ἐγκεφ]ά̣λου καὶ τ̣[ῶ]ν μη[νίγγων], rather than και τ̣η̣ν μη (BKT IX). The brain and its membranes are frequently coupled in Galen and other post-Alexandrian medical writers.

• 7.

  Perhaps ̣τ̣αι̣ ἐκτηκο̣μ̣ε̣[ν-, apparently a participle from ἐκτήκειν, in the sense that something, probably the brain, or a part of the brain, 'is being melted away‘, cf. Galen In Hippocratis Prognosticum Commentaria II 60, with regard to the Hippocratic phrase οἱ δὲ ὄνυχες γρυποῦνται· τῶν στηριζουσῶν αὐτοὺς ἑκατέρωθεν σαρκῶν ἐκτηκομένων (CMG V 9.2, p. 313.6–7 Heeg).

• 9.

  Surely τ]ῶ̣ν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώ[πῳ]. Galen is fond of quoting the generalizations about what is present in man set in the opening chapters of the Hippocratic De natura hominis 1 and 2 and he does so in De elementis (VIII 438.10–11, 439.1–2, 440.4–5 K), in addition to discussing both passages in his commentary to De natura hominis. Hence, perhaps τ]ῶ̣ν ἐν τῷ ἀνθρώ[πῳ] . . . ἐνόντω]ν φλεβῶν seems possible here.

• 10.

  Since faulty syllabification appears unlikely, the completion of κα- in line 11 is likely to be through κα-[τα ], κα-[τω ], κα-[θαρ- ], κα-[κο- ], etc.

• 11.

  Yet τόπος seldom appears in medical contexts without the article. What seems to bolster τόπον is the fact that, unless faulty syllabification be assumed, finding a convincing continuation for τὸ πον-[ is perhaps more difficult.

• 17.

  The articulation ]γ̣̣ιας ἐ̣φ' ἧς seems more likely than a second person verb – whether ἔφης (e.g. ὡϲ αὐτὸς ἔφης, Galen De methodo medendi II 4.13, X 101.7 K), or ἔφησθα (e.g. ὡς βαρὺν ἔφησθα σφυγμὸν εἶναι τὸν ἐκλελυμένον, Galen De differentia pulsuum III [VIII 654.19–655.1 K]).