Lorsch Pharmacopoeia, Baroque spine

Lorsch Pharmacopoeia (The Bamberg State Library, Msc.Med.1).

The Lorsch Pharmacopoeia (Msc.Med.1), from 795, in the Bamberg State Library, is the earliest, reliably datable compendium of classical remedies in the Greco-Roman tradition from the Early Middle Ages in Europe. This medical-pharmaceutical manuscript takes an innovative, scientific approach to medicine, with a theologically based evaluation of people's physical environment. Its foreword provides the earliest and most comprehensive surviving intellectual discussion from the Carolingian age advocating classical learning. It was fundamental in the reappraisal of medicine during the Carolingian educational reform in the late 8th century.