The Art and Science of Healing: From Antiquity to the Renaissance

The Art and Science of Healing: From Antiquity to the RenaissanceThe Art and Science of Healing: From Antiquity to the Renaissance

Arabic Treatise on Potable Medicaments

Arabic treatise on potable medicaments

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Amīn al-Dīn ʻAbd al-Raḥman ibn ʻUmar al-Abharī (d. 1333) al-Juzʼ al-thānī min Tuḥfat al-ṭullāb wa-al-aḥbāb fī ṣifat manāfiʻ al-sharāb In Arabic 1385 Manuscript codex on Arabic paper 209 x 145 mm Isl. Ms. 1050

A rubricated inscription provided by the copyist on the recto of the opening folio plainly identifies the work appearing on the following pages, as well as its author. Also on the opening folio appear two later inscriptions in the hand of a former owner, himself a physician (ṭabīb), one Maḥmūd ibn Aḥmad ibn Maḥmūd al-Dimashqī. In one of these notes, al-Dimashqī declares that he has read and studied the work and found it useful and proven. al-Dimashqī’s second note cites a passage from another dispensatorial work, the well-known pharmacopoeia al-Dustūr al-bimāristānī fī al-adwiyah al-murakkabah of the Egyptian Karaite Jewish physician, Ibn Abī al-Bayān al-Isrāʼīlī (d. 1236). The cited passage describes another “delightful cold beverage” for those suffering heart weakness due to heat.