[Famous physicians from the past--Oribasisus from Pergamum]

Greek physician Oribasius from Pergamum (today's Bergama in western Turkey) (c. 320-400) was one of the most important physicians and personalities of his time.

Oribasisus studied medicine at Alexandria. Although he was the personal physician and friend of the Roman emperor Julian the Apostate, and a very important political figure of that period, he has been remembered as a most important medical writer and historian of medicine.

His major work, written in 70 books (only 25 of these survived), was the "Collectiones Medicae" which contains massive compilation of excerpts (epitomai) from the writings of older medical writers of the ancient world. Later on, he produced the "Synopsis for Eustathius" (Synopseos ad Eustathium) for his son Eustathius, who was also a physician. Oribasius dedicated a large work to his friend, the philosopher Eunapius: "Libri ad Eunapium", a kind of medical encyclopaedia in four volumes with a collection of easily procured medicines compiled for laymen. Several more of his writings are known to have been entirely lost. The works of Oribasius were translated in Latin as early as the fifth century, and later, in the medieval times his books were published in Europe (the "Synopsis for Eustathius" was published in 1554), while the critical edition of his works translated from Greek texts was published in Germany in 1926-1933.

The special importance of the Oribasius' works is that they have preserved a number of excerpts from many medical authors of antiquity whose writings would otherwise have been lost. Besides, these extracts (epitomai) were not entirely verbatim, they were looked upon critically and sorted out in an encyclopaedic manner. Because of that Oribasius is rightly considered to be the first writer of a medical encyclopaedia in the history of medicine.