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A Fragment on Pharmacy from the Cairo Genizah
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 15 March 2011
Extract
Ms. Alliance Israélite Universelle, unnumbered; paper 8 × 5½ in.; Arabic in Hebrew characters, of a Syrian square type. Provisionally numbered viii–B–26. The script is fairly legible, though in places the page has faded and a guess has to be made at the right reading. As is usual in such MSS. the headings are in red, as, for instance, in MS. Arabe 2965 in the Bibliothèque Nationale, the Minhāj al-Dukkān of Abu al-Muna ibn Abi Naṣr ibn Ḥaffāṭh, called al-Kōhēn ibn al-Attār al-Israīlī al-Hārūnī of Cairo, ca. 1260 (see Brockelmann, i, p. 492, No. 34), or an earlier author Badr al-Dīn Muḥammad ibn Bahrām al-Ḳalānisī (ibid., p. 489, No. 23), which I have consulted in MS. 2946 of the Bibliothèque Nationale. In the Genizah collection of the late Mr. Jack Mosseri (Med. No. 14) there is a fragment of a similar work, the original of which, unfortunately, I have been unable to see, but only a photograph.
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- Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 1935
References
Notes
1 In the MSS. referred to in the opening notes, these words are always written out.
2 This is always written 
, with 
at the end. What a Kabul ounce is I do not know. I cannot find that the capital of Afghanistan had a special set of weights and measures.
3 Löw, , Pflanzennamen, pp. 27, 28Google Scholar, “Pfefferkümmel.” See Ibn Baitar, ii, No. 1264.
4 
. According to Ibn Bait., i, No. 416, this is a Berber word for the πολυπδιον—a sort of fern.
5 I cannot make out the first two letters of the word. The following is probably 
. In the remnants of the medical dictionary, Alliance, H. 154a, fol. 83a (Schwab says: “à la fin quartre pages d'un vocabulaire roman-arabe, plusieurs if. sont endommagées”), I find 
. MS. Bibl. Nat. 2993, s.v. 
. See also Ibn Bait., iii, 1618. It is the Agrimonia Eupatoria, so called after Mithridates Eupator; Löw, p. 33; cf. also La Grande Encyclopádie, s.v. Eupatoire. MS. Alliance, H. 154a, fol. 26b: (= 
) 
(unreadable) 
. Cf. Avicenna, i, p. 279.
6 
or 
= πθυμον. See Ibn Bait., i, No. 112; Meyerhof, , Honain ibn Isḥaq, p. 209Google Scholar.
7 What 
means I do not know. I cannot find it in any dictionary.
8 
“whey”; in French “petit lait”. See Ibn Bait., iii, No. 2066.
9 λλɛβορυς. Ibn Bait., ii, No. 773. It is, I think, the Elleborus officinalis.
10 The scribe has put a dot over the 
, where it does not belong. On 
Avioenna, i, p. 278, has a long article upon it and its uses. It is the polyposus officinalis. See Ibn Bait., iii, No. 1622.
11 
Dozy “infusion”. Johnson in his Diet, says it is a Greek word.
12 Dr. Meyerhof considers that 
is an Arabic corruption of the bitter laxative ιρα πικρί mentioned by Galen. I can find no mention of it either in Avicenna or Ibn Bait.
13 This looks more like Italian than Spanish; though MS. Bodleian 2836, Heb. d. 68, contains fragments of a medical dictionary containing recipes in Spanish, but in Hebrew characters; and MS. Bodleian 2836, Heb. d. 68, has fragments of a medical dictionary giving the Arabic terms with Spanish translation and explanation.
14 A sort of headache. MS. Alliance, H. 156a 
, fol. 2a has: 
. The first few pages of this MS. have been added by a much later hand and in square script. The rest of this most interesting MS. is in a very peculiar script, which I think shows a Persian ductus. When I first studied the MS. the pages were all stuck one to the other and I had to unstick them with great care.
15 Or “perfumed aloes”.
16 The number of days must have been mentioned here; but the spot is blotted out.
17 
is put here only to fill out the line; the word is given in full at the beginning of the next line. For this reason the scribe has put a dot over the .
18 Reading 
—the dot over the 
may mean nothing.
19 MS. Bibl. Nat. 2993, fols. 88a to 94b, has a full chapter on “pastiles” (τροκίσκοι). See also the MS. of al-Kalānisī, Bibl. Nat. Arabe 2946, fols. 105b to 112a.
20 Ghālia, sukk, and rāmik are all perfumed remedies. DrMeyerhof, refers me to an article on Perfumes in the Archiv für die. Gesch. der Naturwissenschaft und der Technik, Leipzig, 1913, vi, pp. 418 ff.Google Scholar
21 On 
see MS. Bibl. Nat. Arabe 2993, fol. 92a: 
; but the wording is not the same as in our fragment. On 
see Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1201.
22 On the use of musk see Encycl. Brit., s.v., MS. Bibl. Nat. Arabe 2946, fol. 173b: 
23 
= Khmer, i.e. Cambodja; though none of my authorities give Cambodja as a special place from which aloe-wood comes.
24 The letters 
are used merely to fill out the line; they are the first letters of the first word on the following line.
25 So Dozy s.v.
26 i.e. Myrtus communis; see Löw, p. 50.
27 One would expect 
in the genitive!
28 Shwaiya, diminutive of 
.
29 On Bān, the ben-tree, see Avicenna, i, p. 139; Ibn Bait., i, No. 226, and note attached by de Sacy. It is the Guilandina Moringa.
30 What “Sabilyān” is I do not know; nor does Dr. Meyerhof.
31 Was this to be used only in the case of important or rich persons ?
32 Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1603, mentions 
as one of the kinds of aloe-wood.
33 Here again 
are the first three letters of the following word.
34 MS. Bibl. Nat. Arabe 2946, fol. 176a: 
35 
“An astringent lozenge made of the juiee of unripe grapes or of nutgalls and pomegranate bark, sometimes containing musk and used as a perfume or ornament.” Redhouse, Turkish and English Dictionary, s.v. See also Johnson and Vullers.
36 On 
see Avienna, i, p. 243. MS. Alliance, H. 154a, fol. 77a: 
[i.e. καρυφυλλον, Löw, p. 355] 
37 Should really be 
, with Ṣade. See Avicenna, i, p. 242; Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1407.
38 
; see Löw, p. 378, and the authorities cited there.
39 
. See Ibn Bait., i, No. 145. Löw says that it is Emblic myrabolana.
40 
.
41 
.
42 In the space left blank towards the end of the line, there is a word written in what seems to be Latin. It ends with the letters cisij.
43 i.e. τροχίσκος διάῤῥοδον.
44 
, i.e. glycyrrhiza glabra. See Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1250.
45 MS. Alliance, H. 154a, fol. 44b: 
46 On the margin 
i.e. Nard. Avicenna, i, p. 223. Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1237, gives the various kinds of 
and their uses.
47 Two words have again been added—not in Hebrew letters—ending in “ciscorf”.
48 Scammonia, in good Arabic 
. See Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1193.
49 On 
see Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1018. He cites an especial treatise on rhubarb, where various kinds are mentioned, and says that that of China is the best.
50 = Persian 
“sweet resin” or “Spanish genêt” (Dozy).
51 
“a tumour”. See Johnson and Dozy.
52 See Ibn Bait., i, No. 113, where one can find a long article on absinth.
53 
“cinnamon”. Johnson says “a kind of cinnamon”. See Dozy s.v. and Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1201.
54 On 
“cinnamon” see Avicenna, i, p. 226; Ibn Bait., ii, No. 1205. Leclerc still thinks that it comes from the Greek ξυλιχ.
55 Dr. Meyerhof 
“lemon-grass-buds”. Ibn Bait., iii, No. 1692, says simply that it is a generic name given to the flower of any plant; and so, practically, does Dozy s.v.
56 
= σχοίνανθος, i.e. Andropagen schoenanthus. Avicenna, has a dāl (i, p. 127)Google Scholar. So does Ibn Bait., i, No. 29. Dozy has it only with a dhāl. It is the oderiferous cane.
57 Reading is not clear and uncertain.
58 Avicenna, i, p. 280, has an article on 
; but he says nothing about 
. Manna = Heb. 
, Exodus xvii, 15. At the end of the article “Manna” in the Encycl. Brit. it is said that the Biblical manna answers very clearly to the tamarisk manna.
59 The 
belongs to the next page.