The medical literature of ancient Greece has been much studied during the 20th century
particularly from the 1970s on. In spite of this intense activity the search for manuscripts
still relies on the catalogue compiled in the early 1900s by a group of philologists led by the
German historian of Greek philosophy and medicine Hermann Diels. However useful the so-called
Diels has been and still is it is now in need of a thorough revision. The present five-tome
set is a first step in that direction. Tome 1 offers a reproduction of Diels' catalogue with an
index of the manuscripts. The following three tomes provide a reconstruction of the texts
contained in the manuscripts listed in Diels on the basis of Diels' catalogue. Proceeding as
Diels did these three tomes distinguish the manuscripts containing texts by (or attributed to)
Hippocrates (tome 2) Galen (tome 3) and the other authors considered by Diels (tome 4). Tome
5 will list all the texts listed in Diels for each manuscript in the catalogue. The present
work will be a reference for all scholars interested in Greek medical literature and
manuscripts in addition to historians of medicine medical book medical tradition and
medical culture.
