All of the extant text in this papyrus is concerned with a single topic within Dioscorides’ pharmacopeia: the preparation and medicinal properties of the fat (στέαρ) of different animals, including calf, bull, deer, chicken, and goose. The following is an example of the content, the English translation of 2.76.17:30:
All fats have a warming property. However, bull, beef, and calf suet are somehow costive and lion’s fat is like them; they say, moreover, that the last also protects against those who plot harm. Elephant and deer fat put snakes to flight when smeared on; shegoat fat is more costive; it is for this reason that it is given with barley-groats and cheese to dysenterics and it is used boiled with juice of peeled barley as a clyster. Their broth is also suitable to use in porridges for tuberculars and it is given with success to people who drank blister beetle.
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