Serapion the Younger

Serapion the Younger wrote a medicinal-botany book titled The Book of Simple Medicaments. The book is dated to the 12th or 13th century. He is called "the Younger" to distinguish him from Serapion the Elder, aka Yahya ibn Sarafyun, an earlier medical writer with whom he was often confused. Serapion the Younger's Simple Medicaments was likely written in Arabic, but no Arabic copy survives, and there is no record of knowledge of the book among medieval Arabic authors. The book was translated to Latin in the late 13th century and was widely circulated in late medieval Latin medical circles. Portions of the Latin text make a good match with portions of a surviving Arabic text Kitab al-Adwiya al-Mufrada attributed to Ibn Wafid. The entire Latin text is very heavily reliant on medieval Arabic medicinal literature; and it is essentially just a compilation of such literature. It is exceedingly clear that the book was not originally written in a Latin language.