XII

PREFACE.

codices of the 14th century, which I have persuaded myself are not of much value for editing the text, based on the various readings of the seventeenth book having been examined.

The Palatine codex 251 (P) of the 15th century is of even less value, which, as I learned having collated the first book, corresponds wonderfully with codex D.

Of the same kind is the Marcian codex 287 of the 15th century, which itself displays the verse: "Christ, O King, for those suffering, [grant] your immortal remedy," together with the inscription: "Galen, On the Use of the Parts in the Human Body, 17 books." I collated the beginning of the first book without any profit.

Nor did I understand that the Mutinensis codex 219, written in the 16th century, was to be valued more highly after having reviewed the variety of its readings, which Otto Staehlin described for me from the seventeenth book. It displays the same subscription as the Parisinus D and the two Laurentians: "This whole book shows the art of Galen | to the children of physicians truly learned (?). | For here in one [volume], having arranged seventeen letters [books], | he set forth for them the use of all the parts | and indeed some wise man [wrote/bound] the good and cunning works | having learned here how many [things] God twisted together by nature. Having found the end of the book, I rejoice, oh word."

What is to be determined about the remaining codices, which H. Diels mentions in Die Handschriften der antiken Ärzte, Part I, p. 68—the Cambridge 47, the two London [codices] of the British Museum, the Paris 2281, the Coislinian 333, the Vatican Passioneian 2, the Venetian app. cl. V 9—I do not know; since they all appear to be of more recent age, I doubt whether they will provide much help for correcting the text. I would have thought the Venetian codex was a twin of codex B, because the first three books are also missing in it, and the last book ends in the same words ("either the moon or some one of").

Besides the codices, in the practice of the critical art, those writers of a later age are to be regarded who excerpted Galen's very extensive work. And first, Oribasius, at the command of the Emperor Julian, composed seventy books of Medical Collections in such a way that he excerpted almost word for word from the writings of famous physicians what [was useful] to students of medicine.