J. Worth Estes 2006 Prize
Stephen Snelders the winner of the 2006 J. Worth Estes prize received a print from a rare facsimile edition of the 6th Century Vienna Dioscorides (original in the Austrian National Library in Vienna)
Kentaureion to Lepton
The tender pale flower illustration of this plant with its intricately realized shoots infers that the painter had a herbarium specimen as a copy. The botanical concept Erythrea centaurium refers to the reddish color of the blossoms (erythros = reddish), while the New Latin name A centaurium umbellatum @ recorded by the French botanist Gilibert (1741-1814) alludes to the umbellatum shape of the cyme. The Greek name "centaurion", which has been retained to the present day, consecrates the medical herb of many applications to the centaur associated with herbal knowledge, Chiron. Homer describes him, the noblest of the centaurs, pedagogue of Achilles, Aesclepius and Hercules. In mythology Chiron appears as the civilized antithesis to the wild "horse centaur". According to the legend he is supposed to have cured himself with the plant after having wounded himself with one of Hercules' poisoned arrows...
Especially against inflammatory fever (Gangraena) or other "blood fevers" accompanying blood poisonings, the plant received the name "bloodwort". After this effect had been forgotten for some time, it was rediscovered and the centaury was used instead of imported China bark, especially with intermittent fever, shivers, etc. Further proof of this is provided by the names "feverfew" or "feverwort". Like a number of other medicinal plants, the centaury was established as a lung herb against lung diseases, blood expectorations and asthma; perhaps in this context it was also used against anemia and deficiency of the blood. The additional application as inner and outer hemostatic in particular may trace back to the old theory of color signatures, known already to the Indians, according to which the erythrea exerted influence on the blood through its reddish color...
From the time of the Hippocratics in the 5 th century before Christ up into the modern era this plant has held its place as a many-sided remedy.