Medical Opisthographs

Abstract

Abstract The chapter discusses the cases of opisthographic papyri dealing with a medical content. According to Manfredo Manfredi’s definition of opisthograph as a papyrus roll reused to transcribe an extensive text, the focus will be on scrolls repurposed on their back side to copy Greek medical treatises, handbooks or receptaria. The analysis will consider the material features of such copies – the nature and quality of the original text, the medical genre, palaeography – in order to draw some preliminary conclusions about the relationship between reuse and genre in a highly specialized technical category of papyrus texts.