John of Saint-Amand and Galen's De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus: an Example of a Re-Appropriation of Galenic Pharmacology by the Medieval University Context

The present study intends to re-consider the process of assimilation of Galenic pharmacology in the academic milieu of the thirteenth-century by investigating the use of Galen’s De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus in some of John of Saint-Amand’s writings (Expositio super Antidotarium Nicolai, Areolae, Concordantiae, Adbreviationes librorum Galeni) and in Pierre de Saint-Flour’s Colliget florum medicinae. This study demonstrates the difficulties in assimilating Galen’s pharmacology and its theoretical background as conveyed in De simplicium medicamentorum facultatibus, and examines the role played by the reception of this work in the Parisian academic context, together with the New Galen.