Already in the second century, when the canon of the Christian Bible was being formed, most of the holy Scriptures were being distributed in codex form, while Roman and Hebrew literature was still circulating in scrolls. 2 The popularity of the newfangled reading technology among early Christians helped Christianity become a religion of the Word. Codices offered what the computer age has taught us to call random-access memory âthe ability to go to any position in the text without reading through the entire work in sequence. And in works specifically designed to be consulted in short bursts rather than read from cover to cover, the ability to turn pages makes all the difference.
The codex made possible a number of related technologies. One was the page numberânot unheard of in scrolls, but much more common when pages were clearly demarcated in the codex. And the page number enabled both the table of contents and the index. The latter is especially relevant, because an index turns any book into a reference book, if only for a moment. Even books written for sequential reading lend themselves to quick lookups when there is a list of topics in the back keyed to pages.
The codex made the modern reference book possible. Many things have changed, of course, over the last fifteen hundred years, starting with the material: at first papyrus, made from reeds; then vellum, made from calfskin; then paper, made first from rags and later from wood pulp. Bindings and title pages have changed radically, and decorations such as dust jackets and deckled edges were introduced over time. And Gutenbergâs development of movable type changed the method by which words were put on pages. But these changes were motivated by concerns about cost, availability, durability, and advertising; they did not change the basic function of the book. A modern reader is immediately at home with even a fifth-century codex, and a fifth-century reader would know at once how to operate a hot-off-the-presses book today.
Our own era may finally be witnessing the form that will take over from the codex: the electronic book, whether it will be on the large screens of desktop computers, on dedicated devices, on tablets, or on some platform yet to be invented. Still, it would be foolish to bet against the codex. After nearly two millennia as the dominant form of distributing longish texts, it has a good track record.
CHAPTER 6
LEECHCRAFT
Medieval Medicine
Bald
Leechbook
c. 950 C.E.
Avicenna
Kitab al-Qanun fi al-tibb
1025 C.E.
Medicine features in a number of reference works, but medical references constitute their own substantial and specific genre. A rich and international library of these books goes back to antiquity, and they provide invaluable evidence for historians. In India, the Sushruta Samhita , probably written in the sixth century B.C.E. , became one of the founding works of Ayurveda, or Indian medicine; its collection of more than a thousand diseases and nearly a thousand treatments was rediscovered in the eighth century C.E. when it was translated into Arabic. Pedanius Dioscorides wrote a five-volume Peri hyles iatrikes ( On Medicine ) in the first century C.E. . It lists the healing properties of around six hundred plants and almost a thousand drugs, and it earned the praise of the encyclopedist Cassiodorus. Marcellus Empiricus wrote De medicamentis ( On Medicines ) in the fourth or fifth century, and the work was read for a millennium. This chapter focuses on two pioneering works in the field we would classify as medicine, one from Anglo-Saxon England, the other from Persia.
We are not even sure a physician named Bald existed. The sum total of the information we have on him comes from a note in Latin hexameters on sole surviving manuscript: “Bald owns this book, which he ordered Cild to write.” Perhaps that means Cild was the author, and Bald hiredhim to write the text. Or it may mean that Bald composed the text and got Cild
The codex made possible a number of related technologies. One was the page numberânot unheard of in scrolls, but much more common when pages were clearly demarcated in the codex. And the page number enabled both the table of contents and the index. The latter is especially relevant, because an index turns any book into a reference book, if only for a moment. Even books written for sequential reading lend themselves to quick lookups when there is a list of topics in the back keyed to pages.
The codex made the modern reference book possible. Many things have changed, of course, over the last fifteen hundred years, starting with the material: at first papyrus, made from reeds; then vellum, made from calfskin; then paper, made first from rags and later from wood pulp. Bindings and title pages have changed radically, and decorations such as dust jackets and deckled edges were introduced over time. And Gutenbergâs development of movable type changed the method by which words were put on pages. But these changes were motivated by concerns about cost, availability, durability, and advertising; they did not change the basic function of the book. A modern reader is immediately at home with even a fifth-century codex, and a fifth-century reader would know at once how to operate a hot-off-the-presses book today.
Our own era may finally be witnessing the form that will take over from the codex: the electronic book, whether it will be on the large screens of desktop computers, on dedicated devices, on tablets, or on some platform yet to be invented. Still, it would be foolish to bet against the codex. After nearly two millennia as the dominant form of distributing longish texts, it has a good track record.
CHAPTER 6
LEECHCRAFT
Medieval Medicine
Bald
Leechbook
c. 950 C.E.
Avicenna
Kitab al-Qanun fi al-tibb
1025 C.E.
Medicine features in a number of reference works, but medical references constitute their own substantial and specific genre. A rich and international library of these books goes back to antiquity, and they provide invaluable evidence for historians. In India, the Sushruta Samhita , probably written in the sixth century B.C.E. , became one of the founding works of Ayurveda, or Indian medicine; its collection of more than a thousand diseases and nearly a thousand treatments was rediscovered in the eighth century C.E. when it was translated into Arabic. Pedanius Dioscorides wrote a five-volume Peri hyles iatrikes ( On Medicine ) in the first century C.E. . It lists the healing properties of around six hundred plants and almost a thousand drugs, and it earned the praise of the encyclopedist Cassiodorus. Marcellus Empiricus wrote De medicamentis ( On Medicines ) in the fourth or fifth century, and the work was read for a millennium. This chapter focuses on two pioneering works in the field we would classify as medicine, one from Anglo-Saxon England, the other from Persia.
We are not even sure a physician named Bald existed. The sum total of the information we have on him comes from a note in Latin hexameters on sole surviving manuscript: “Bald owns this book, which he ordered Cild to write.” Perhaps that means Cild was the author, and Bald hiredhim to write the text. Or it may mean that Bald composed the text and got Cild
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