Aelius Promotus

{{Short description|Greek physician based in Alexandria}}

Aelius Promotus ({{langx|grc|Αίλιος Προμωτος}}) was an ancient physician of Alexandria,{{Citation | last = Greenhill | first = William Alexander | contribution = Aelius Promotus | editor-last = Smith | editor-first = William | title = Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology | volume = 1 | pages = 29 | place = Boston | year = 1867 | contribution-url = http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0038.html | access-date = 2007-10-21 | archive-date = 2012-10-07 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20121007070934/http://www.ancientlibrary.com/smith-bio/0038.html | url-status = dead }} of whose personal history no particulars are known, and whose date is uncertain. He is supposed by Villoison to have lived after the time of Pompey the Great,Jean-Baptiste-Gaspard d'Ansse de Villoison, Anecd. Graec. vol. ii. p. 179. note 1. that is, in the 1st century BC. By others he is considered to be much more ancient; yet other scholars place him as late as the second half of the 1st century AD. He is most probably the same person who is quoted by Galen simply by the name of Aelius.Galen, De Compos. Medicam. secund. Locos. iv. 7, vol. xii. p. 730. He wrote several Greek medical works, which are still to be found in manuscript in different libraries in Europe. The treatise On venomous beasts and poisonous drugs, attributed to Aelius, was first known through excerpts and for the first time published completely in 1995.{{Cite book |last=Promotus |first=Aelius |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IL8rAAAAYAAJ |title=Aelius Promotus: Peri tōn iobolōn thēriōn kai dēlētēriōn pharmakōn |last2=Ihm |first2=Sibylle |date=1995 |publisher=L. Reichert |isbn=978-3-88226-822-5 |language=de}} His main work titled {{lang|grc|Δυναμερόν}}{{lang|grc|Δυναμερόν}} is a word used by the later Greek writers, and is explained by Du Cange (Gloss. Med. et Infim. Graecit.) to mean vis, virtus. It is however frequently used in the sense given to it in the text. (Latin Medicinalium Formularum Collectio), was first published in its complete extension in 2002 by Daria Crismani.Elio Promoto alessandrino, Manuale della salute, a cura di Daria Crismani (Hellenica 9), Alessandria 2002. Two other of his works are quoted or mentioned by Hieronymus Mercurialis.Hieronymus Mercurialis, Variae Lectiones, iii. 4; De Venenis et Morbis Venenosis, i. 16, ii. 2. And also by Schneider in his prefaces to Nicander's Theriaca,Schneider, Otto, 1856, Lipsia, Teubner, p. xi. and Alexipharmaca.Schneider, Otto, 1856, Lipsia, Teubner, p. xix.