Anonymus Londinensis  Anonymus Londinensis (or Anonymus Londiniensis) is the name given to an anonymous Ancient Greek author of approximately the 1st century AD whose work "On Medicine" (, ) is partially preserved in a papyrus in the British Library (PBrLibr inv. 137 = P.Lit.Lond. 165). It ranks as the most important surviving medical papyrus and provides important information about the history of Greek medical thought. While only fragments survive of some portions of the text, the papyrus containing the work of Anonymus Londinensis is exceptionally well preserved, with 3.5 meters of the roll largely intact, containing almost 2,000 lines of text in 39 columns. It seems to be an unfinished draft (breaking off in mid-column) in the hand of the author, who compiled, digested, and manipulated various sources as he wrote, so that we may even observe the process of his thinking as he writes. The text consists of three parts: a series of definitions related to the affections of the body and soul (cols. 1-4), a doxographical part (cols. 4-20), and a physiological part (cols. 21-39). The doxographical part is a survey of 5th and 4th century writers on the causes of disease, following a source called "Aristotle" but usually ascribed to Aristotle's pupil Meno and identified with the title "Menoneia" mentioned in Plutarch's "Quaestiones convivales" VIII.ix, 377c. This work would have been part of the early Peripatetic project to survey all of the most important fields of knowledge. The views of some twenty physicians are reported, with Plato cited more than any other authority, even Hippocrates. The authorities are classified into two groups, one holding that disease is caused by residues of food, the other by disturbances in the balance of the bodily elements. Hermann Diels had suggested that Anonymus Londinensis knew this Peripatetic doxography through the "Areskonta" of Alexander Philalethes, but there is little plausible justification for this view. The final, incomplete, section of the work discusses physiology in a manner influenced by dialectical argument. Only the views of Aristotle and subsequent authors are considered, including Herophilus (who appears in a comparatively positive light), Erasistratus (who is attacked together with his followers), Asclepiades of Bithynia, and Alexander Philalethes.