MS. Arab. e. 110 (Bodleian Library, Oxford University)
Oriental Manuscripts
Contents
References
This treatise, covering the treatment of virtually all known disorders and diseases, is divided into 67 or 68 chapters (bābs). Some copies give an alternative title of Mukhtaṣar Buqrāṭ al-ḥakīm fī abwāb al-ṭibb (An Epitome of Hippocrates’ On the Chapters of Medicine) or Tartīb al-abwāb (The Systematisation of Chapters). Whether the treatise is a translation of an otherwise unknown Hippocratic composition, or whether it is a later work composed in Arabic and falsely attributed to Hippocrates, has not been conclusively determined. For other copies: See Sezgin, GAS III, 42−3 no. 20 and GAS III N7, 375; Naqshabandī, Baghdad, 323–4, in 68 bābs; and Gacek, McGill, 139, in 67 bābs. See also Şeşen et al., Medical Manuscripts, 11, where there is a confusion with Tabwīb Fuṣūl Buqrāṭ by al-Sinjārī; for the latter see Entry No. 4.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The script, paper, and ink suggest a dating of the twelfth/eighteenth or thirteenth/nineteenth century. It is nearly a complete copy, consisting of 67 bābs, while some copies are recorded as having 68 bābs.
Dimensions 21.6 × 15.6 (text area 19.8 × 12.8) cm; 14–16 lines per page. The title is given at the beginning of the text, where the author is also given as Buqrāṭ. The text area does not appear to have been frame-ruled. It is written in medium-large to large, inelegant, personal Naskh with occasional vocalization. Black ink is used, with the headings and overlinings in either a purple-red (beginning to folio 9b) or a tomato-red ink (folio 10a to end). The inks frequently fade to a lighter shade. There are catchwords.
The smooth, matt, cream paper has a thickness of 0.12–0.14 mm and an opaqueness factor of 4 to 5. There are vertical (occasionally horizontal), straight, laid lines, indistinct single chain lines, and watermarks (a crescent moon and the initials F P). The top edges of the leaves have been trimmed from their original size.
There are occasional marginal or interlinear pencilled English translations of phrases.
References
References
References
References
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References
Physical Description
Binding
The volume is bound in pasteboards covered with European marbled paper with a red leather spine. There are modern endpapers and pastedowns.
History
Provenance and Acquisition
The volume belonged to R. Campbell Thompson. Reginald Campbell Thompson (d. 1941) was a noted Assyriologist and Fellow of Merton College who from 1907 onwards travelled frequently to Mesopotamia for excavations. His academic interests included ancient materials on omens and incantations, and it may be that the pencilled English translations and other pencilled notes in the manuscript are those of Thompson’s.
The volume was purchased from R. Campbell Thompson, 20 November 1920.
Record Sources
Availability
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Funding of Cataloguing
JISC
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