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MediManus is a virtual thematic library of ancient Greek medical manuscripts.
It provides access to digital reproductions of these manuscripts along with original scientific information about their transmission and significance in modern medicine. The platform aims to revitalize the study of ancient Greek medicine and promote renewed scientific research by making these historical texts accessible to scholars and the public. Beyond a library, it is a multicomponent repository of original analytical information with a particular focus on the works contained in the manuscripts. It is not a single collection, but a cluster of connected research programs that explore the Greek medical heritage, from the manuscripts themselves to their texts, especially those on pharmacotherapeutics.
Besides the Search feature to explore Greek medical manuscripts, the platform includes two important sections:
PhytEikon, focusing on Manuscripts & Plants,
PharmAntica, devoted to Pharmacotherapy in Ancient Greece.
MediManus is a digital publication of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Harvard University, managed and curated by a Team of specialists:
Project Director: Mark Schiefsky
Executive Editor: Ioanna Papadopoulou
Chief Scientific Editor: Alain Touwaide
Web Content Curator: Emanuela Appetiti
Information Technology:
Esteban Belmehdi
Theodoros Michalareas
Julien Razanajao
Eleni Belmehdi
In collaboration with SQUAREDEV
Check it out regularly: new manuscripts will be posted as they become available through the digitization in progress in libraries worldwide.
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Manuscripts, Plants, Remedies in the Mediterranean Traditions: Studies across Disciplines for Alain Touwaide, De Gruyter, 2025.
This three-volume set of essays is dedicated to our Scientific Director Alain Touwaide, known for his far-reaching investigations in ancient medicine, botany, pharmacy, texts and manuscripts, the classical tradition, translation, the history of science, ethnopharmacology, and plant therapies. The 80 essays, penned by international scholars and researchers and written in six languages, are grouped into three broad categories—Manuscripts, Plants, and Remedies—to reflect Alain’s main areas of research. Each category is broken into subgroups, such as manuscripts, texts, and science; botany; gardens, materia medica, pharmacy, drugs, archaeology, medical traditions, and continuity of scientific knowledge in the East and West. The papers reach across many fields of scholarship, science, and medicine and are, necessarily and fundamentally, trans-disciplinary, trans-chronological, and trans-geographic. These volumes are not so much a Festschrift as an approach to Alain’s work through many disciplines and methods, a discussion of the current status of each field, and an opening into new perspectives.
Oberhelman, Steven M. Tome 1: Manuscripts. ›Codices‹, Texts, Science and Medicine, De Gruyter, 2025.
Oberhelman, Steven M. Tome 2: Plants. Botany, Gardens, ›Materia medica‹, Ethnopharmacology, De Gruyter, 2025.
Oberhelman, Steven M. Tome 3: Remedies. Pharmacy, Drugs, Archaeology, Tradition, De Gruyter, 2025.
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Our Scientific Director Alain Touwaide has been awarded the prestigious George Urdang Medal by the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy (AIHP) “for his remarkable achievement and for setting an exemplary standard for pharmacy historians and scholars worldwide.” AIHP awards the George Urdang Medal biennially to recognize the lifetime achievements of a person who, over a sustained period, has made important scholarly contributions to the field of the history of pharmacy and pharmaceuticals.
From the official letter: "Your work exemplifies the scholarship the George Urdang Medal seeks to honor. Your publications address varied topics spanning many centuries and they exhibit great breadth and depth. In many ways, your long and productive career highlights and mirrors the humanistic aspirations for pharmacy history put forward 80 years ago by George Urdang, making you a worthy recipient of the George Urdang Medal.”
The George Urdang Medal will be formally presented to Alain Touwaide at the International Congress for the History of Pharmacy, which will be held in Belgrade, Serbia, in September 2024.
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The Oklahoma Scholar-Leadership Enrichment Program - OSLEP is an intercollegiate academic program sponsored by the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education open to students at all the public and private universities in Oklahoma.The scholar-leadership program provides room and board, as well as books, at no additional charge to the students. The program encourages students to enroll in a five-day residential, 4000-level, leadership course featuring top scholars from various disciplines.
Among the courses of this year, one will be taught in mid-March by our Scientific Director Alain Touwaide, and it will be devoted to Books of Science/Science of the Book.
The seminar will examine books of science from the time of Hippocrates to Hans Sloane and beyond. Particular attention will be devoted to the making of the scientific book though time, and to the methods to be used for the study of ancient book, be it manuscript or printed. Based on case studies, the course will include virtual visits to libraries across the world, analysis of actual books from the History of Science Collections of the University of Oklahoma Library, and hands-on experience. It aims to open the way to cross-disciplinary research based on the search for, and direct examination of, relevant ancient documents (primary sources) in any scientific discipline.
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Scientific Director Alain Touwaide will be a Visiting Professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), in Paris, for the whole month of May.
Below is the program of his public lectures (all in French), organized by Filippo Ronconi, EHESS-Centre d’études en sciences sociales du religieux.
Mercredi 11 mai | 14h30 – 16h30 Salle 25B • EHESS, 2 cours des humanités 93300 Aubervilliers
Les données des manuscrits – The Manuscript Evidence. Dans le cadre du séminaire «Histoire culturelle byzantine et méditerranéenne (VIIe-Xe siècles)», animé par Filippo Ronconi.
Vendredi 13 mai | 14h30 – 16h30 Salle 3.09 • Centre de colloques, cours des humanités 93300 Aubervilliers
Une autre thérapie – Transforming Therapeutics. Dans le cadre du séminaire «Histoire de la médecine et des savoirs sur le corps (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle)», animé par Rafael Mandressi.
Mercredi 18 mai | 11h00 – 13h00 Salle Pierre-Jean Mariette•INHA – 2 rue Vivienne 75002 Paris
Médecins, livres et plantes d’un monde à un autre – Peoples, Books and Plants on the Move. Dans le cadre du séminaire, «Acteurs et espaces de l’échange dans la Méditerranée antique», animé par Cecilia D’Ercole.
Mercredi 25 mai | 14h30 – 16h30 Salle 25B • EHESS, 2 cours des humanités 93300 Aubervilliers
Vers une nouvelle lecture de la médecine méditerranéenne – Revisiting the Traditional Narrative. Dans le cadre du séminaire, «Histoire culturelle byzantine et méditerranéenne (VIIe-Xe siècles)», animé par Filippo Ronconi.
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As official partner of the recently established Ethnobotany Collaborative Group (ECoG), within the Pharmacognosy Institute at the University of Illinois Chicago College of Pharmacy, the IPMT will contribute to the new Seminar entitled “Plant Medicine from Rainforest to Metropolis – A Legacy for the Future”, with two classes by our Scientific Director Alain Touwaide, entitled "History of Materia Medica, from the Remotest Antiquity to Today".
Fall 2021,UIC Honors College, Class HON 201, CRN 13770
Click HERE to see the titles of the seminars and the instructors.
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