The ancient Egyptian Ebers Papyrus, one of the oldest known spices, but the data from 1550 BC and is based on sources now lost, is based, a further 500 to 2000 years. The earliest Sumerian herbal dating from about 2500 BC as a copied manuscript of the seventh century before Christ. Join Assyrian tablets 668-626 BC list of about 250 plant drugs: the tablets herbal plant names still in use, including: saffron, cumin, turmeric and sesame seeds.
The ancient Greeks won a lot of their medical knowledge from Egypt and Mesopotamia. Hippocrates (460-377 BC), the “father of medicine” (known by the same oath of Hippocrates), uses about 400 drugs, most are of plant origin. However, the first Greek herbal of each note by Diocles of Karystos in the fourth century BC, wrote, even though nothing remains of this, with the exception of the entry in the log. It was Aristotle’s pupil Theophrastus, (371-287 BC) established in his Historia Plantarum and De Causis Plantarum (better known as the inquiry into plants are known), the scientific method of careful and critical observation in the context of modern botanical science. Largely based on Aristotle’s notes, it is the ninth book of his request specifically with medicinal herbs, custom soaps and their use, including the recommendations of the herbalists and chemists of the day, and his descriptions of the plants is often a part of their natural habitat and geographic distribution. With the founding of the Alexandrian school c. 330 BC herbalism flourished and wrote about this period, in which the physicians Herophilus, Mantias, Andreas of Karystos, Apollonius Mys and Nica Islander. The work of rhizomatist (rhizomati were the doctors of the day, by Theophrastus criticized for their superstitions) Krateuas (110 BC) is of special note, as he continued the tradition of herbal shown in the first century BC.