The Latin Alexander Trallianus: The Text and Transmission of a Late Latin Medical Book

This volume offers in effect a set of prolegomena, the first part of an ongoing project to produce the first critical edition of the Latin version of the Greek medical works Therapeutica and On Fevers by the Byzantine doctor, Alexander of Tralles (fl. c. AD 500?). The volume comprises an introduction to Alexander, his surviving works and their influence and echoes; an outline account of the Greek Therapeutica and On fevers and some comparisons and contrasts with the Latin version, in broad terms and in detail; a description of the complete and near-complete manuscript copies of the Latin Alexander and a proposed reconstruction of the genetic relations between them; an account of the various branches of the 'secondary' (excerpting) tradition, the principal manuscript copies of each and the relation that each branch bears to the 'mainstream' tradition; some preliminary remarks, based on those chapters collated for the purposes of this preparatory work, on the Latinity of the maker, or makers, of the Latin Alexander; and a sample edition, with English translation, critical apparatus, and extensive philological and linguistic notes, of the chapters on coughing at the start of Book 2 of the Latin Alexander.