"... in the first century AD, the first known copies of ' ('On Medical Material') were produced, translated into both Latin and Arabic. These were written by a Roman physician of Greek origin called . In this illustrated book he covered 600 plants with around a further 1,000 medicines made from them. It was widely read for thousands of years and was regarded as a pharmaceutical 'bible' for those in practice, becoming the most influential work on medicinal plants in both Christian and Islamic cultures. Astonishingly, a copy of the illustrated manuscript, dating back to the sixth century, is still in existence, held in Istanbul, Turkey."