DOCSLIB.ORG

455 Book Reviews

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
455 Book Reviews Book Reviews or to Christendom (Expiracio´n Garcı´aSa´nchez medicine. The largest and most important on the gardens of al-Andalus). The collection of Genizah fragments is housed in contributions also range from ferociously the Cambridge University Library, which also scholarly text-based work to broader brush- hosts the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research strokes, and to the interestingly practical, with Unit. The research presented in this book is Deirdre Larkin’s closing paper on recreating based on this particular archive. medieval gardens (an unfortunate proof- Research into the medical treasures of the reading error has given her the running head Cairo Genizah was greatly enhanced by an Horus (for Hortus) redivivus, but there are no Iraqi Jewish doctor, Haskell Isaacs, who Egyptian deities in her piece—the range is not settled and practised medicine in Manchester. quite that wide). The combination of his knowledge of Arabic It would be invidious in such a short review (including Judaeo-Arabic), Aramaic and to pick out individual papers for praise or Hebrew, and his medical training, coupled criticism, but I recommend the collection as a with his intense interest in, and recognition of whole not only to medievalists (both early and the significance of, the Genizah manuscripts, late), but to anyone who may believe that the enabled him to break new ground in the field classical legacy was neglected or unknown until of Genizah medical research. This culminated the humanists rediscovered it, and to all those in the production of a descriptive catalogue of interested in plant-based medicine, materia medical manuscripts, which remains the most medica, or the history of horticulture. The important reference work to this day (H D editors deserve our gratitude for bringing these Isaacs, Medical and para-medical manuscripts scholars together (the collection stems from a in the Cambridge Genizah collections, conference held at Penn State in 2003) and for Cambridge University Press, 1994). Since its sharing their findings with a wider audience. publication, at least another 180 new medical manuscripts from the Genizah have come to Debby Banham, light. It is obvious, therefore, that research into University of Cambridge the Genizah medical manuscripts is very much in its infancy. The range of medical texts found thus far is astounding, and includes Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar, Practical fragments of Arabic translations of classical materia medica of the medieval eastern medical texts (e.g. Hippocrates and Galen), Mediterranean according to the Cairo works on anatomy, pathology, pharmacology Genizah, Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series, and therapeutics, prescriptions, and letters vol. 7, Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2008, pp. x, containing medical advice as well as lists of 619, e169.00, $237.00 (hardback 978-90-04- materia medica. 16120-7). Lev is a botanist by training, so he brings an important array of skills to the analysis of The term Cairo Genizah refers to a room in medicinal plants. Amar is a historian with a the Ben Ezra Synagogue in Fustat (Old Cairo), strong research profile in the history of science into which, in accordance with Jewish and technology in the Middle East. Between practice, unwanted documents were deposited them, they have over 100 publications in in order to avoid destroying the written divine Hebrew, so this book represents a much name. For about 1000 years, between the ninth needed step in the dissemination of their work and nineteenth centuries, around a quarter of a to a wider audience. million items, ranging from large manuscripts The bulk of this book consists of two to small fragments, were placed in this room, detailed lists of materia medica, arranged in making it the most important documentary alphabetical order according to their English archive for both Mediterranean and medieval names (Agaric to Zinc, Acacia to Yew) studies across many fields, including followed by their Latin and Arabic names. 455 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.219, on 30 Sep 2021 at 23:27:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300004221 Book Reviews Sufficient indices of Arabic and Latin terms pitfalls. For example, in their entry on the ash are also given, which greatly enhances the tree (pp. 340–1), the authors refer to the usefulness of these chapters. Also, the Arabic Arabic terms dardar , lisan al-‘as: afr and lisan terms are transliterated throughout, so non- al-‘us: fur . In modern standard Arabic, the last Arabists should not feel intimidated. The first two terms refer to the ash, while the first refers list contains 120 items that are commonly to the elm. Lev and Amar state, “The name attested in the Genizah fragments, while the ‘dardar ’ was given to elm and common ash second contains 140 items that are less trees, but in the Levant this was the usual term commonly attested. only for the Syrian ash” (p. 340). The problem After the opening section on terminology, here is that dardar is probably a Persian term for each entry there follows a description (e.g. adopted by earlier Syriac writers to translate botanical, metallurgical) of the substance and the Greek term pt«l«a&, which refers to the a brief reference to earlier sources that discuss elm, so it was not the usual term for ash in the it (e.g. Dioscorides, the Bible and the Levant. The picture becomes further confused Talmud). The next two sections discuss the because certain writers, such as the late- medicinal uses of the substance as described in twelfth-century Iberian agriculturalist Ibn practical lists of materia medica and al-‘Awwam, referred to the lisan al-‘as: afr as theoretical medical textbooks respectively, being the fruit of the dardar tree. Given that with reference to the particular Genizah one of the most celebrated botanists, Ibn al- fragments that contain these descriptions. Thus Baitar, was born in Iberia but gradually moved this book functions as a concordance to the eastwards until his death in Damascus, it is occurrence of medicinal substances in the also clear that trying to distinguish such fragments of the Taylor-Schechter Collection, identifications by region is not advisable. albeit an incomplete one due to the infancy of This volume is a very timely reference this field. Moving beyond the Genizah work that will be deeply appreciated by all sources, the following sections discuss working in medieval medicine in the references to substances in the wider medical Mediterranean. Any shortcomings are due to literature of the medieval period, the current the infancy of the field, meaning that uses of these substances in the traditional subsequent revisions will be necessary as more medicines of the Middle East, and references research is done and more documents come to to their production and trade in medieval light. If the authors persevere with this, it will sources. The data given is very detailed, with prove of great use for many years to come. ample references to enable further study. The The value of the Taylor-Schechter Collection utility of the volume is further enhanced by in Cambridge is clearly demonstrated by this copious appendices and indices, a detailed book, and one can only hope that its bibliography and a useful introduction. There publication stimulates more interest in an are thirty-two pages of colour photographs, often neglected archive. some of Genizah documents, some of medicinal substances, including a photograph Siam Bhayro, of a carrot and carrot seeds (fig. 20), University of Exeter intriguingly labelled “Seeds and root of carrot, Daucus carota (Apiaceae)”. John Henderson, Peregrine Horden and Fortunately, such vanities are rare in what is Alessandro Pastore (eds), The impact of otherwise a very worthwhile volume that hospitals 300–2000, Oxford and Bern, Peter really only lacks a reverse index of Genizah Lang, 2007, pp. 426, illus., £48.00 (paperback fragment classmarks. 978-3-03911-001-8) A word of caution is in order, however, regarding the identification of the plants. This The publication of The hospital in history is a very problematic process with many (1989) represented a break with traditional 456 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.40.219, on 30 Sep 2021 at 23:27:39, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300004221.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • 455 Book Reviews
    Book Reviews or to Christendom (Expiracio´n Garcı´aSa´nchez medicine. The largest and most important on the gardens of al-Andalus). The collection of Genizah fragments is housed in contributions also range from ferociously the Cambridge University Library, which also scholarly text-based work to broader brush- hosts the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research strokes, and to the interestingly practical, with Unit. The research presented in this book is Deirdre Larkin’s closing paper on recreating based on this particular archive. medieval gardens (an unfortunate proof- Research into the medical treasures of the reading error has given her the running head Cairo Genizah was greatly enhanced by an Horus (for Hortus) redivivus, but there are no Iraqi Jewish doctor, Haskell Isaacs, who Egyptian deities in her piece—the range is not settled and practised medicine in Manchester. quite that wide). The combination of his knowledge of Arabic It would be invidious in such a short review (including Judaeo-Arabic), Aramaic and to pick out individual papers for praise or Hebrew, and his medical training, coupled criticism, but I recommend the collection as a with his intense interest in, and recognition of whole not only to medievalists (both early and the significance of, the Genizah manuscripts, late), but to anyone who may believe that the enabled him to break new ground in the field classical legacy was neglected or unknown until of Genizah medical research. This culminated the humanists rediscovered it, and to all those in the production of a descriptive catalogue of interested in plant-based medicine, materia medical manuscripts, which remains the most medica, or the history of horticulture.
    [Show full text]
  • Medieval Materia Medica According to the Cairo Genizah
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by PubMed Central Medical History, 2007, 51: 507–526 Practice versus Theory: Medieval Materia Medica according to the Cairo Genizah EFRAIM LEV and ZOHAR AMAR* Introduction Much information on medicine and the use of materia medica in the medieval period exists, but it is mainly based on the vast medical literature of that period both in the East and the West. Such books composed in the Arab world cover various subjects: medical theories and doctrines, the maintenance of good health (regimen sanitatis)1 or preventive medicine, different diseases and ailments, and qualities of medicinal substances,2 pharmacopoeias listing remedies and how to make them,3 and materia medica—medicinal substances, their different names and medical uses.4 Most of these books were written by qualified and learned physicians and pharmacists, are well organized, and were meant for teaching as well as references for theory and # Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar 2007 1 Moshe Ben Maimon (Maimonides), Regimen sanitatis, ed. Sussmann€ Muntner, Jerusalem, Mossad * Efraim Lev, PhD, Department of Eretz Israel Studies Harav Kook, 1957; see also edition published in Basel and School of Public Health, University of Haifa, and New York by S Karger, Haifa, Israel. 1966; Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Kitab al-Kullıyat , Zohar Amar, PhD, Department of Land of Israel Madrid, Instituto General Franco, 1939 Studies and Archeology, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat- (in Arabic). 2 Ibn Sına (Avicenna), Kitab al-Qan un fı al-tibb, Gan, Israel. _ Cairo, Bulaq, 1877 (in Arabic); Moshe Ben Maimon This article is dedicated to the late Dr Haskell D Isaacs, (Maimonides), The medical aphorisms of Moses a physician and scholar of the history of medicine, who Maimonides, trans.
    [Show full text]
  • Looking Again: Violence, Photography, Spectatorship, and Conflict Images of Children
    School of Media, Culture and Creative Arts Looking Again: Violence, Photography, Spectatorship, and Conflict Images of Children Christopher Dennis Lewis This thesis is presented for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Of Curtin University May 2016 Declaration To the best of my knowledge and belief this thesis contains no material previously published by any other person except where due acknowledgment has been made. This thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university. Human Ethics (For projects involving human participants/tissue, etc) The research presented and reported in this thesis was conducted in accordance with the National Health and Medical Research Council National Statement on Ethical Conduct in Human Research (2007) – updated March 2014. The proposed research study received human research ethics approval from the Curtin University Human Research Ethics Committee (EC00262), Approval Number MCCA−18−12. Signature: …………………………………………. 24 May, 2016 Date: ………………………... i ii Abstract This thesis examines questions of photographic violence, ethics and spectatorship. It focuses these questions through images of children in situations of war and conflict, ranging from one of the earliest instances of ‘disaster photography’, Willoughby Hooper’s images of the Madras famine of 1877, to the picturing of the drowned refugee toddler, Aylan Kurdi, on the shores of the Mediterranean in 2015. The thesis begins by engaging with the critique of photography as a form of symbolic violence, articulated most notably by Susan Sontag. It seeks a point of departure from Sontag’s emphasis on figure of the photographer by drawing on Ariella Azoulay’s notion of the spectator as an active agent in making and remaking a photograph’s meaning.
    [Show full text]
  • Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Journal of Ethnobiology and provided by Springer - Publisher Connector Ethnomedicine BioMed Central Review Open Access Ritual plants of Muslim graveyards in northern Israel Amots Dafni*1, Efraim Lev2, Sabine Beckmann3 and Christian Eichberger4 Address: 1Institute of Evolution, University of Haifa, Haifa, 31905, Israel, 2Department of Eretz Israel Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa, 31905, Israel, 3Vigla Panagias, 72100 Agios Nikolaos, Crete, Greece and 4Department of Organismic Biology, University of Salzburg, Hellbrunnerstr. 34, A-5020 Salzburg, Austria Email: Amots Dafni* - [email protected]; Efraim Lev - [email protected]; Sabine Beckmann - [email protected]; Christian Eichberger - [email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 10 September 2006 Received: 31 May 2006 Accepted: 10 September 2006 Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2006, 2:38 doi:10.1186/1746-4269-2-38 This article is available from: http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/2/1/38 © 2006 Dafni et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract This article surveys the botanical composition of 40 Muslim graveyards in northern Israel, accompanied by an ethnobotanical study of the folkloristic traditions of the use of these plants in cemeteries. Three groups of plants were found to be repeated systematically and were also recognized for their ritual importance: aromatics herbs (especially Salvia fruticosa and Rosmarinus officinalis), white flowered plants (mainly Narcissus tazetta, Urginea maritima, Iris spp.
    [Show full text]
  • Jewish Medical Practitioners I N the Medieval Muslim World
    IN JEWISH MEDICAL PRACTITIONERS PRACTITIONERS JEWISH MEDICAL Explores the lives of Jewish physicians and pharmacists THE in medieval Muslim lands MEDIEVAL MUSLIM WORLD MUSLIM MEDIEVAL This book collects and analyses the available biographical data on Jewish medical practitioners in the Muslim world from the 9th to the 16th century. The biographies are based mainly on information gathered from the wealth of primary sources found in the Cairo Geniza (letters, commercial documents, court orders, lists of donors) and Muslim Arabic sources (biographical dictionaries, historical and geographical literature). The practitioners come from various socio-economic strata and lived in urban as well as rural locations in Muslim countries. Over 600 biographies are presented, enabling readers to explore issues such as professional, daily and personal lives; successes and failures; families; Jewish JEWISH MEDICAL communities; and inter-religious affairs. Both the biographies and the accompanying discussion shed light on various views and aspects of the medicine practised in this P RACTITIONERS IN THE period by Muslim, Jews and Christians. MEDIEVAL MUSLIM Key Features • Offers a unique insight into the life of Jewish physicians and pharmacists, their WORLD families and communities in medieval Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Iran, North Africa, Sicily and Andalusia A C OLLECTIVE BIOGRAPHY • Shows how Jewish practitioners participated in community leadership, in hospitals and in the courts of the Muslim rulers • Analyses the biographical data to provide information on the relationships among Jews, Muslims and Christians, and between the common people and the elite EFRAIM LEV Efraim Lev is a Professor in the Department of Israel Studies and current Dean of the Faculty of Humanities in the University of Haifa, Israel.
    [Show full text]
  • The Doctrine of Signatures in the Medieval and Ottoman Levant, Vesalius, VIII, 1, 13-22, 2002
    The Doctrine of Signatures in the Medieval and Ottoman Levant, Vesalius, VIII, 1, 13-22, 2002 The Doctrine of Signatures in the Medieval and Ottoman Levant Efraim Lev Abstract This study traces the use of the Doctrine of Signatures among medieval and Ottoman physicians and its subsequent appearance in the pharmacological literature of the Levant. Close examination of the historical sources of the Levant seems to support the claim that although this theory did not originate in the region, it was certainly practised there. These sources have revealed 23 substances with medicinal uses based on the Doctrine, bearing witness to the extent of its influence at the time. The main categories of the Doctrine uncovered were: similarity between the substance used and the human organ; resemblance in shape or behaviour to a specific animal; correlation between the colour of a substance and the colour of the symptoms; similarities between the substance and the patient's symptoms and the use of a substance that might produce symptoms of a particular disease in a healthy person to remedy those same symptoms in one who is sick. Key words : Doctrine of Signatures, Levant, Medieval, Ottoman, Medicinal Substances Résumé Cette étude retrace l'histoire de la Théorie des Signatures parmi les médecins du Moyen Age et chez les Ottomans, ainsi que son développement ultérieur dans la pharmacologie du Levant. Même s'il semble que la Théorie de la Signature ne tire pas son origine au Levant, il est clair qu'elle était appliquée là-bas aussi. Ainsi, recense-t-on 23 substances qui sont autant de preuves de l'application de cette théorie à cette époque et dans un lieu déterminé.
    [Show full text]
  • Mediators Between Theoretical and Practical Medieval Knowledge: Medical Notebooks from the Cairo Genizah and Their Significance
    Med. Hist. (2013), vol. 57(4), pp. 487–515. c The Author 2013. Published by Cambridge University Press 2013 doi:10.1017/mdh.2013.56 Mediators between Theoretical and Practical Medieval Knowledge: Medical Notebooks from the Cairo Genizah and their Significance EFRAIM LEV∗ Department of Eretz Israel Studies, University of Haifa, Haifa, 31905, Israel Abstract: This article presents a plethora of fragments from the medical notebooks found in the Cairo Genizah that comprise a unique source of historical data for scholarly study and for a better understanding of the ways in which medieval medical knowledge in Egypt was transferred from theory to practice and vice versa. These documents provide the most direct evidence we have for preferred practical medical recipes because they record the choices of medical practitioners in medieval Cairo. Since the language most commonly used in them was Judaeo-Arabic, they were evidently written by Jews. The medical genre in the notebooks was primarily pharmacopoeic, consisting of apparently original recipes for the treatment of various diseases. There are also a few notebooks on materia medica. The subject matter of the Genizah medical notebooks shows that they were mostly of an eclectic nature, i.e. the writers had probably learnt about these treatments and recipes from their teachers, applied them at the hospitals where they worked or copied them from the books they read. Foremost among the subjects dealt with were eye diseases, followed by skin diseases, coughs and colds, dentistry and oral hygiene, and gynaecological conditions. The writers of the Genizah notebooks apparently recorded the practical medical knowledge they wished to preserve for their future use as amateur physicians, students, traditional healers or professional practitioners.
    [Show full text]
  • Ethno-Diversity Within Current Ethno-Pharmacology As Part of Israeli Traditional Medicine – a Review Efraim Lev*
    Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine BioMed Central Reviews Open Access Ethno-diversity within current ethno-pharmacology as part of Israeli traditional medicine – A review Efraim Lev* Address: Dep. of Eretz Israel Studies and School of Public Health, University of Haifa, Har Carmel, Haifa, 31905, Israel Email: Efraim Lev* - [email protected] * Corresponding author Published: 09 January 2006 Received: 15 November 2005 Accepted: 09 January 2006 Journal of Ethnobiology and Ethnomedicine 2006, 2:4 doi:10.1186/1746-4269-2-4 This article is available from: http://www.ethnobiomed.com/content/2/1/4 © 2006 Lev; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Abstract The Holy Land has absorbed millions of immigrants in recent centuries: Jews from East and West, Druze, Circassians, Muslim and Christian Arabs. The land is unique and diverse in geographical location and ethnic groups, and also in its cultural characteristics, including traditional medicine and use of materia medica. However, these traditions have waned over the years. The young state of Israel adopted a "melting pot" approach to fashion Jews from all over the world into Israelis. The traditional medicine and materia medica of different ethnic groups (Yemenite, Iranian, and Iraqi Jews) are reviewed in this paper, as well as the ethno-botanical survey (first conducted in the 1980s, covering Bedouins, Druze, Circassians, and Muslim and Christian Arabs), and the matching ethno- pharmacological survey (conducted in the late 1990s) covering the medicines sold in stores.
    [Show full text]
  • Oxbow Book News 99
    OXBOW BOOK NEWS 99 New and forthcoming titles for Autumn 2017 Archaeology The Ancient World Greece and Rome The Middle Ages Welcome to the ninety-ninth edition of the Oxbow Book News, packed as ever with all of the latest archaeological, classical and medieval releases, as well as a cracking selection of new bargain books. You will find titles ranging in scale from a new synthesis covering two and a half million years of environmental change in the Levant, to reports covering a single site, or monographs focusing on the activities of a single family. We have two major publications in the Oxbow list coming up in early 2018. The use of a Bayesian statistical framework in the interpretation of radiocarbon dates has revolutionised our sense of scale in the Neolithic. Where once it was necessary to think in terms of thousands of years, it is now becoming possible to think in terms of centuries or even single generations. In The Times of their Lives: Hunting History in the Archaeology of Neolithic Europe Alasdair Whittle explains this dramatic leap forward, and teases out the implications for our understanding of sequences and rhythms of change in the European Neolithic. The discovery of two mass burials in the north-east of England formed the starting point which led to Lost Lives, New Voices: Unlocking the Stories of the Scottish Soldiers at the Battle of Dunbar 1650 by Richard Annis, Anwen Caffell, Chris Gerrard, Pam Graves and Andrew Millard. The skeletons proved to be the remains of prisoners captured and executed after the battle, and the book brings together archaeologists and historians to reconstruct their lives, and also those of the prisoners who survived.
    [Show full text]
  • Herbal Medicine in Yemen
    Herbal Medicine in Yemen Traditional Knowledge and Practice, and Their Value for Today’s World Edited by Ingrid Hehmeyer Hanne Schönig with the collaboration of Anne Regourd LEIDEN • BOSTON 2012 © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 23207 5 contents v CONTENTS Foreword Sheikh A. Bawazir . vii Acknowledgements . ix About the Authors . xi A Note on Transliteration Convention . xiii List of Illustrations and Maps . xiv Map 1: The Governorates of Yemen . xvi Map 2: Significant Places Cited . xvii Introduction Hanne Schönig and Ingrid Hehmeyer . 1 The Validity of Traditional Medicine as an Effective Tool in Issues of Human Health Ingrid Hehmeyer . 7 Eastern Mediterranean Pharmacology and India Trade as a Background for Yemeni Medieval Medicinal Plants Efraim Lev . 21 Magic and Medicine in a Thirteenth-century Treatise on the Science of the Stars Petra G. Schmidl . 43 Qāt and Traditional Healing in Yemen Daniel Martin Varisco . 69 The Aloe and the Frankincense Tree in Southern Arabia: Different Approaches to Their Use Miranda Morris . 103 Healing through Medicinal Plants: Old Yemenite Therapeutic Traditions and Their Application in Jerusalem Today Ester Muchawsky-Schnapper . 127 © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV ISBN 978 90 04 23207 5 vi contents Honey, Coffee, and Tea in Cultural Practices of Ḥaḍramawt Mikhail Rodionov . 143 From Medicinal Plants of Yemen to Therapeutic Herbal Drugs Jacques Fleurentin . 153 The Miraculous Plant ḥalqa (Cyphostemma digitatum): From Grandmother’s Kitchen in Yemen’s South-western Highlands to Modern Medicinal and Culinary Applications Mohammed Al-Duais and Gottfried Jetschke . 167 A Pharmacist’s View of the Potential Value to Modern Medicine of Plants and Fungi Used by Traditional Medicine in Yemen Ulrike Lindequist .
    [Show full text]
  • Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean According to the Cairo Genizah
    Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean According to the Cairo Genizah LEV-AMAR_i-iv.indd i 9/3/2007 3:45:12 PM Sir Henry Wellcome Asian Series Edited by Dominik Wujastyk Paul U. Unschuld Charles Burnett Editorial Board Donald J. Harper Ch. Z. Minkowski Guy Attewell VOLUME 7 LEV-AMAR_i-iv.indd ii 9/3/2007 3:45:13 PM Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean According to the Cairo Genizah By Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 LEV-AMAR_i-iv.indd iii 9/3/2007 3:45:13 PM This book is printed on acid-free paper. The Sir Henry Wellcome name is used under licence from the Wellcome Trust. The volumes in this series are published with financial support from the Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL. The peacock logo of the series was drawn by the artist Phyllida Legg. The authors would like to thank the Syndicate of Cambridge University Library for the permission to publish the Cairo Genizah fragments presented in this book and on its cover. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lev, Efraim. Practical materia medica of the medieval eastern Mediterranean according to the Cairo / by Efraim Lev and Zohar Amar. p. ; cm. — (Sir Henry Wellcome Asian series, ISSN 1570-1484 ; v. 7) Includes bibliographical references and indexes. ISBN 978-90-04-16120-7 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Materia medica—Middle East — History. 2. Medicine, Medieval—Middle East—History. 3. Jews—Medicine—Middle East—History. 4. Cairo Genizah. I. Amar, Zohar. II.
    [Show full text]
  • An Early Glimpse at Western Medicine in Jerusalem 1700-1840: the Case of the Jews and the Franciscans9 Medical Activity
    An Early Glimpse at Western Medicine in Jerusalem 1700-1840, Vesalius, XI, 11, 81-87, 2005 An Early Glimpse at Western Medicine in Jerusalem 1700-1840: The Case of the Jews and the Franciscans9 Medical Activity Zohar Amar and Efraim Lev Summary During the Mamluk and Ottoman periods, the monks of the Franciscan Order were the only representatives of the Catholic Church in Jerusalem and they provided medical treatment for Christians. This article looks at the activities of the Franciscans, in particular in their pharmacy, which was associated with the production of Jerusalem balsam, famous both in the East and in Europe. It compares these activities with those of Jewish physicians in Jerusalem and looks at the relationships between the two groups and their effects on medical development in the Levant. Résumé Pendant l'époques Mameluk et ottomane, les moines de l'ordre franciscain étaient les seuls représentants de l'Eglise catholique à Jérusalem et ils délivraient les traitements médicaux aux chrétiens. Cet article examine l'activité des Franciscains, en particulier dans le domaine de la pharmacie, laquelle était associée à la production du balsamique de Jérusalem, célèbre en Orient et en Europe. L'activité médicale des Franciscains est comparée à celles des médecins juifs de Jérusalem et l'article s'intéresse aux relations réciproques entre ces deux groupes ainsi qu'aux effets produits sur le développement médical dans tout le Levant. The Standard of Medicine in Jerusalem Medical Activity of the Franciscans in The Ottomans seized the Holy Land from the Mamluks Ottoman Jerusalem in 1516 and ruled it until the British conquest in 1917, The Franciscan Medical Institution during the First World War.
    [Show full text]