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: 170.106.35.234, on 29 Sep 2021 at 22:02:44, 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: 170.106.35.234, on 29 Sep 2021 at 22:02:44, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300004221.