Arabic MS 552 (The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, The University of Manchester)

Emilie Savage-Smith raises the problem of attribution of the book to al-Rāzī in her catalogue of Arabic medical manuscripts in the Bodleian library, Oxford University (Savage-Smith 2011, 528–532 (Entry 140). She observes there may be two versions of the text which show considerable variation from each other. The beginning and endings of the Bodleian manuscripts, which appear to represent one version, do not match those of the Manchester manuscript. The latter represents a second version of the text, also preserved in two manuscripts in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library (Iskandar 1967, 128–9), WMS Or. 23 and 28.

There is an edition published in Lucknow India in 1886 (*GAL* S I, 420) which presents the second version which the Manchester manuscript preserves.

Ibn Abū Uṣaybiʿa (Müller, vol. 1, p. 316, ll. 18–19) attributes a book to Rāzī with the title كتاب إلى من لا يحضره طبيب ('Book for Anyone who is not Attended by a Physician'). Ibn Abī Uṣaybiʿa adds: وغرضه إيضاح الأمراض وتوسع القول ويذكر فيه علة علة وأنه يمكن أن يعالج بالأدوية الموجودة ويعرف أيضا بكتاب طب الفقراء (‘Its purpose was an explanation of diseases and an enlargement on the topic, and in it he discussed the subject of disease by disease and set down in it the therapy using easily obtained drugs, and it is also known as Kitāb Ṭibb al-fuqarā'' (translation in Savage-Smith 2011, 529).)

The text proceeds disease by disease from head to toe. The diseases are “internal” diseases. A description of the disease, some symptoms are followed by numerous therapies, often involving drugs, foodstuffs, oils, ointments, baths and other practical prescriptions. There is a change in the kind of disease at folio 43b, where the author signals that ‘we shall now speak about affections on the surface of the body (reading بدن for بطن)’. Then at folio 47b, he begins a section on poisons, beginning with a section on treating scorpion and snake bites. At folio 49a, the final section begins, which is on fevers.

Numerous marginal notes; no corrections.

References