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Medieval Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic Prescriptions (and the edition of three medical prescriptions)*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 September 2008

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Extract

The literature on medicine in medieval Muslim countries in general and in Egypt in particular is vast and detailed. Yet study and assessment of the practical aspects of medicine in the Mediterranean society of the Middle Ages requires examination of authentic, practical medical knowledge. At present this can be extracted mainly from the prescriptions found in the Cairo Genizah; these supply a different and valuable dimension. On the importance and the potential of research into the medical aspects of the Genizah documents, mainly prescriptions, Goitein wrote in 1971 that “these prescriptions have to be examined by experts in the history of medicine”.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society , Volume 18 , Issue 4 , October 2008 , pp. 449 - 464
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Asiatic Society 2008

Medieval Egyptian Judaeo-Arabic Prescriptions

The literature on medicine in medieval Muslim countries in generalFootnote 1 and in Egypt in particular is vast and detailed.Footnote 2 Yet study and assessment of the practical aspects of medicine in the Mediterranean society of the Middle Ages requires examination of authentic, practical medical knowledge. At present this can be extracted mainly from the prescriptions found in the Cairo Genizah; these supply a different and valuable dimension. On the importance and the potential of research into the medical aspects of the Genizah documents, mainly prescriptions, Goitein wrote in 1971 that “these prescriptions have to be examined by experts in the history of medicine”.Footnote 3

In this spirit, the article attempts to contribute to a better understanding of everyday practical medicine in medieval Cairo as revealed by the prescriptions, mainly those written in Judaeo-Arabic (Arabic written in Hebrew script). Accordingly, answers are sought to the following research questions: A. Who wrote these prescriptions? B. Who prepared the medical recipes? C. Why did these practitioners use Judaeo-Arabic? D. What can be learnt from the Judaeo-Arabic prescriptions (about 1. medicine, 2. public/community health, 3. the use of materia medica, 4. level of scientific medical knowledge, 5. the relationship between medieval medical theory and practice)?

Description of the research

This research is based mainly on the Taylor-Schechter Genizah collection at Cambridge. All other collections are much smaller and some have not yet been catalogued. To date, beside Isaacs's catalogueFootnote 4 and our work in process on the Mosseri and John Rylands collections,Footnote 5 no specialist catalogue of medical fragments in the other Genizah collections has been published. A survey of the collections at the British Library, the Bodleian Library at Oxford, and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem shows that these contain very few Genizah fragments relating to medicine; mostly they are parts of books.Footnote 6

All Genizah fragments at the Taylor-Schechter collections that were identified as medical by Isaacs and Baker, and a few dozen that have been identified as such since their book was published, have been studied carefully and were re-categorised according to certain criteria into five groups: books, notebooks, letters, lists of materia medica, and prescriptions.Footnote 7

The main criteria applied in this research for a Genizah fragment to be identified as a prescription are as follows:

  1. 1. It names medicinal substances and quantities, and gives instructions on preparation.

  2. 2. A prescription is usually written on one page.

  3. 3. It is usually written on one side of a sheet of paper (very rarely vellum).

  4. 4. It is often written on reused paper (at times in the margin or in between the lines of other documents or even books).

The following elements are found rarely, but they are very helpful in identifying a fragment as a prescription:

  1. 1. Benedictions at the beginning or end of the recipe,Footnote 8 or both.Footnote 9

  2. 2. Symptoms/diseases.Footnote 10

  3. 3. The name of the inventor of the recipe.

  4. 4. The name of the medicine.Footnote 11

  5. 5. Instructions for use (how many times a day, special diet, and quantities).Footnote 12

  6. 6. The patient's name.Footnote 13

Findings

By using these criteria while sifting through the Taylor-Schechter Genizah collection we were able to trace prescriptions, among other documents. One hundred and forty-one unique prescriptions were found in the Genizah collection in Cambridge University Library, out of which eighty-three were written in Arabic, fifty-six in Judaeo-Arabic, one in Judaeo-Persian,Footnote 14 and one in Hebrew.Footnote 15 That only fifty-six of them, less than forty percent, were written in Judaeo-Arabic, the most widely used language and dialect in the daily life of medieval Cairo, calls for an explanation.

The Judaeo-Arabic prescriptions can be divided into three groups according to their state of preservation and origin: full/complete text,Footnote 16 damaged/partial texts,Footnote 17 and prescriptions in letters.Footnote 18 We consider these prescriptions an important element of medical knowledge in its practical form. These prescriptions reflect the state of medicine that actually existed; a unique aspect of the information that emerges from them is their originality.

Three medical documents

To give an idea of the various shapes of Judaeo-Arabic prescriptions that were found in the Genizah collection, three fragments have been chosen for publication. Here a picture of the original, the transcribed text, and a translation are presented.

1. T-S Ar.30.305 Prescription

Text:

Translation:

  1. 1. In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

  2. 2. Chicory seeds and liquorice stems, of each three dirhams.

  3. 3. Berberry seeds, tamarisk, and pistachio shells, of each two

  4. 4. [dirhams], prepared rose. Boil it all

  5. 5. with one hundred dirhams of water until reduced to a third [of that amount]. Strain it

  6. 6. over two ūqiyyas of quince jam and one quarter dirham of chalk.

  7. 7. Cool it and take it mouthful after mouthful with a dish of

  8. 8. pullet [cooked] in sour grape-juice and pickled almonds.

  9. 9. Beneficial, if God wills.

2. T-S Or. 1081. J.39 Prescription (recto)

Text:

Translation:

  1. 1. The shaykh Abū al-Hayy

  2. 2. Take chebulic myrobalan, one dirham; turpeth and agaric and hiera picra, of each half a dirham;

  3. 3. rhubarb and dodder and absinth, of each two dāniqs; blue bdellium and Andarānī salt

  4. 4. and mastic, of each one dāniq. Grind all of it, and add to it two dāniqs of scammony and knead

  5. 5. everything with rose syrup and take it at daybreak with hot water and at the time

  6. 6. drink from a circle of hard ground in which is a handful of red raisins cleaned of stones, and borage

  7. 7. and crushed polypody and senna, of each one dirham; fresh rose, cleaned of thorns,

  8. 8. five in number, skim over rose syrup and washed basil seed. Eat chicken

  9. 9. A S B I R B A J and change the . . . when skimming white wine. Beneficial if God wills.

3. T-S Ar.30.65 (recto)

Text:

Translation:

  1. 1. [Unclear]

  2. 2. Take with God's blessing

  3. 3. Kabul and Indian [myrobalan] – of each one ūqiyya

  4. 4. Beleric and embolic [myrobalan] – of each one dirham

  5. 5. Mecca senna and Cretian dodder – of each one ūqiyya

  6. 6. Lavender and Syrian borage –

  7. 7. of each 5 dirhams; Armenian stone

  8. 8. and lapis lazuli – of each 3 dirhams

  9. 9. Red raisins and globular raisins – half a raṭl each,

  10. 10. to be pounded separately,

  11. 11. not together with the medicaments listed.

  12. 12. Add to the medicaments 3 ūqiyyas of sugar,

  13. 13. take half a raṭl of julep

  14. 14. for soaking the whole of it,

  15. 15. and knead it well. Use in doses of 10 dirhams

  16. 16. over 3 consecutive days.

  17. 17. As an appetiser take with rose sherbet, or rose oil,

  18. 18. or wine. God willing [the medicine will help]; for strengthening [its effect] take deodar and [or]

  19. 19. scammony.

  20. 20. For the Karāmiyya.

Discussion

As mentioned in the introduction, this article is concerned mainly with one aspect of the history of medicine of the Jewish community of Cairo (as a reflection of medieval Middle Eastern societies): the practical prescriptions written in Judaeo-Arabic as a source of medieval medical knowledge. Sources for such research of a medieval community are generally extremely rare, since all records of practical medicine naturally vanish over the years. The discussion is divided into seven subdivisions that emerge from the research questions and the study of various Genizah and other sources:

A. Jewish practitioners in medieval Cairo (who wrote these prescriptions?)

According to the Genizah, many medieval Egyptian Jews chose the medical profession for a wide range of reasons. That a large number of Jews engaged in the medical profession in Egypt and other Muslim territories emerges from other historical sources as well, mainly books by medieval biographers and historians of medicine such as Ibn Abi Uşaybi'a.Footnote 19 This writer mentions more than fifteen Jewish practitioners whom he met or knew of in Cairo in his time and before.

So far, sifting through Genizah fragments as part of an ongoing long-term projectFootnote 20 has yielded the names of more than fifty physicians. Of several explanations for this phenomenon, Goitein's is still convincing and relevant, based as it is on his deep knowledge and understanding of medieval Mediterranean society, particularly its Jewish sector. Goitein explains the phenomenon of Jewish predominance in medicine not as the “continuation of the pre-Islamic tradition but as a contemporary development owing to the revival of the Greek sciences in Islam on the one hand and the efflorescence of trade with India and the Far East on the other”. In his opinion medicine and pharmaceutics then experienced unprecedented exuberance and became almost new professions.Footnote 21

Most of the fifty Jewish physicians found to date in the fragments lived and practised medicine in Cairo, with a few more in Alexandria and several small cities in Egypt, between the eleventh and the thirteenth century. Their titles (all signifying ‘doctor’), according to the Genizah fragments, were al-mutatabbib,Footnote 22 al-tabib,Footnote 23 ha-rofe,Footnote 24 and hakim.Footnote 25 In a few cases titles reflect other communal positions the physician held, such as head of community: nagid,Footnote 26 prominence in the community: parnas,Footnote 27 or physician and judge.Footnote 28 Maimonides was called also rais al-yahud, which according to Goitein means official leader of the Jews.Footnote 29 For some of them we even have information on their specialisation: eye doctors,Footnote 30 a wound specialist,Footnote 31 and a physician who worked in a hospital.Footnote 32 As noted, most of the physicians worked privately in CairoFootnote 33 or Alexandria,Footnote 34 others pursued their careers in small villages,Footnote 35 some practised in hospitalsFootnote 36 and a select few in rulers’ courts.Footnote 37 The Genizah fragments have immensely increased our knowledge of Jewish physicians practising in the Middle East and their status.Footnote 38

B. Pharmacy, Jewish pharmacists and materia medica (who prepared these recipes and where?)

Pharmacy was the most popular of all branches of the healing art, according to the Genizah manuscripts. Goitein writes: “One need not delve deeply into the writings of the Cairo Genizah in order to discover that a great many of them refer to the professions connected with the processing and sale of drugs, spices, perfumes and potions for medical and culinary uses”.Footnote 39 Elsewhere he states, “The prominence of the Jews in the professions of druggist and pharmacists during the High Middle Ages – which is paralleled by their equally strong representation in the fields of medicine on the one hand, and in that of the international trade in spices and drugs on the other – calls for comment”.Footnote 40 The use of hand-books, classical materia medica, and medical books such as that of Dioscorides was an important part of their work. The Jewish religion too, as it developed in post-Talmudic times, had become very scholarly.

Ṣaydalānī Footnote 41 or ṣaydalī is usually translated as pharmacist or apothecary. There were specialists such as the sufūfī or preparer of medical powders.Footnote 42 The word ṣaydalānī is traditionally explained as dealer in sandalwood (Santalum sp.), so ṣaydalānī, like ˓aṭṭār, originally designated a perfumer.Footnote 43 The pharmacists were trained to collect and preserve the various medicaments brought from near or far-off lands.Footnote 44 The occupation of ˓aṭṭār, usually translated as perfumer or druggist, is among those occurring most commonly in the Genizah.Footnote 45 The ˓aṭṭārūn usually operated in a special section in the market named sūq al-˓aṭṭārīn;Footnote 46 the equivalent murabba˓at al-˓aṭṭārīn is mentioned as well.Footnote 47 Very often patients bought their medicines from a drug seller. This roving herbalist probably relied for his sales not on a doctor but on his own diagnoses and suggested method of treatment, or on his clients’ prescribing for themselves, that is, their self-medication (see Fig. 4).

Regarding the materia medica used in the recipes, 242 different substances were traced in prescriptions found in the Genizah, of which 195 are of plant origin, 27 are inorganic, and 20 are of animal origin.Footnote 48 Two hundred and six substances were traced in lists of materia medica.Footnote 49 Altogether, 278 substances were recorded in practical medical Genizah documents.Footnote 50

C. Medical and pharmaceutical books as literary sources of practical formulae found in prescriptions (where did the medical know-how come from?)

Every medical book found in the Genizah belonged, in some way or at some stage of its existence, to a Jewish person, especially one in the medical profession.Footnote 51 According to our preliminary survey 35 different titles of medical books have been identified so far.Footnote 52

Medieval pharmacists and physicians were required to be acquainted with the current handbooks of medicaments, such as the famous Dustūr al- bīmāristānī (Hospital Handbook)Footnote 53 by the Jewish (Karaite) physician Ibn Abī al-Bayān (thirteenth century) which was characterised by his pupil Ibn Abī Uṣaybi˓a as “comprising the compound medicaments generally prepared in the hospitals of Egypt, Syria and Iraq and in the shops of the apothecaries”.Footnote 54 Though the book is short the author claims it contains all the medicaments commonly prescribed. Several parts of this book have been identified among Genizah fragments.Footnote 55

A much bigger book, Minhāj al-dukkān fī al-adwiya al-nāfi˓a lil- insān (The shop guide – or How to run the [apothecary's] shop),Footnote 56 was written in 1259–60 by Abū al-Munā al-Kūhīn al-˓Aṭṭār. With time, this book became even more popular and was printed several times between 1870 and 2003. It served as a guide for traditional drug sellers, and still does.Footnote 57 A fragment of this book,Footnote 58 for example, was recently identified, and a critical edition of its eight pages has been published.Footnote 59

These two books written by members of the community were among those most popular for the Genizah practitioners according to the number of fragments found and recognised as deriving from them, and according to the similarity of content of original Genizah prescriptions. As an example, one prescription,Footnote 60 written in Judaeo-Arabic, was copied, in all probability, from a recipe found in Ibn Abī al-Bayān's book al-Dustūr al-bīmāristānī, a treatment of eye diseases (Ṣifat al-shiyāf al-sab˓īni).Footnote 61 However, it seems to have been amended: not all the substances are the same and the quantities have been slightly altered. We presume it was part of the process of transforming theoretical knowledge (written in a book) into a prescription for use (depending on the existence and availability of medicinal substances in the markets and pharmacies).Footnote 62 More evidence of the same process is the several dozen personal notebooks identified in the Genizah collections. Their contents are medical theories, methods of healing, and selected prescriptions chosen and then copied for their own use by medical students or practitioners from books and oral knowledge coming from famous physicians whom they worked with or under. Preliminary research into this bulk of notebooks has revealed that most of them (written in Judaeo-Arabic) concentrate on one area of medicine, such as ophthalmology,Footnote 63 gynaecology,Footnote 64 or dentistry,Footnote 65 and others deal with various recipes. These can give us a first clue as to the most prevalent diseases among the members of the community.

D. Jewish patients in medieval Cairo (who used these prescriptions?)

Only a few prescriptions with patients’ names have been found, presumably because the patient's identity would be obvious as prescriptions were individual. Patients were expected to receive their prescription directly from the physician and then bring it to the pharmacist to have it made up, so it would be clear for whom the prescription was meant. Even if a prescription was meant for someone too ill to leave the house, the bearer of the prescription would know who it was for. Here are some examples and a brief discussion of the most important names of patients found in prescriptions written in Judaeo-Arabic:

  1. A. T-S Ar.30.65 – Karāmiyya (a woman from the Karām family, a common name in the twelfth to thirteenth century).Footnote 66

  2. B. T-S Or.1081.J.39 – The elder Abū Yaḥyā [shaykh Abū al-Hayy] (probably Nahray b. Nissīm).Footnote 67

  3. B. T-S NS 223.82–83 – Twelve short prescriptions were found written on a single sheet of paper, and they all had names of males and females, some of whom were related: al-Nafūs, al-Damīriyya, zawjat Abraham (wife of Abraham?); Ibn Siḥān (son of Siḥān), zawjat Ḥasan (wife of Ḥasan), Maḥāsin (male), Bintuhu (his daughter), al-Najīb, ibnuhu (his son) Farīj, Umm al-Zabbānī (mother of al-Zabbānī), ibnuhā (her son).Footnote 68 Sometime a pious wish, as a way of confirmation, was added too.

In several cases Goitein was able to identify the handwriting of the physician who wrote the prescription (e.g., T-S 1081.J.39; T-S Ar.30.65; T-S Ar.53.33).Footnote 69

E. Health and diseases (what did the Jewish patients suffer from?)

Prescriptions can teach us about the prevailing diseases, and their symptoms, that members of the community actually suffered from. Unfortunately, in most cases neither the symptoms nor the patient's name appear on the prescription. However, analysing the prescriptions and some of the notebooks with the help of contemporary pharmacopoeias shows that eye diseases were the most prevalent ailments. The many fragments concerned with ophthalmology from many different medical books dealing with eye diseases are more evidence of this.Footnote 70 Other ailments were skin diseases, headaches, fevers, internal diseases (liver), intestinal problems, and haemorrhoids, as well as many others such as urinary trouble, ulcers, swellings, cough, and gynaecological illnesses.Footnote 71

F. Reconstruction of the medieval Mediterranean medical treatment cycle (how did it actually work?)

Medical treatment usually began with a patient visiting a physician at his clinic, continued with the latter writing a prescription, which was subsequently put to use by the preparation of the formula by a pharmacist at his pharmacy. In the cases of self-medication, or when the patient consulted a pharmacist directly, no written prescriptions were involved in the process. Sometimes the physician saw patients in a rented room at the back of the pharmacy.Footnote 72 The prescription stage is usually missing from historical records for various reasons: in some cases the physician made up the formula himself so no prescription existed, but presumably in more cases there was no reason to keep the prescriptions, and they were torn up or thrown away (see Fig. 4). This reconstruction is based upon Genizah texts, medieval medical literature,Footnote 73 as well as ethnopharmacological surveys and studies conducted in Israel,Footnote 74 Jordan,Footnote 75 Egypt,Footnote 76 Syria,Footnote 77 and other Middle EasternFootnote 78 and Muslim countries.Footnote 79

G. Medical prescriptions written in Judaeo-Arabic

The Judaeo-Arabic prescriptions generally have the following fundamental parts: 3–10 substances (mainly of plant, animal, and inorganic origin); quantities of the substances to be used (awqiyya, dirham), and cooking instructions (boil with, soak in, stir). On this basis, two main variations of Judaeo-Arabic prescriptions were found:

  • First variationFootnote 80 (see Fig. 1)

  • In the name of God, the merciful

  • Take xx, yy, zz,

  • Quantities (e.g., of each one dirham),

  • Instructions

  • Diet (eat/drink/use with . . . . .)

  • Help with God's will.

  • Second variationFootnote 81 (see Fig. 2)

  • Treatment/medicine for xxx/name of recipe/name of patient

  • Take xx, yy, zz

  • Quantities

  • Instructions

  • Diet

  • Benediction.

Fig. 1. Judaeo-Arabic prescription – with Arabic benedictions (T-S Ar.30.305).

Fig. 2. Judaeo-Arabic prescription – with the name of patient written in Arabic at the beginning of the document and a benediction at the end (T-S Or.1081.J.39)

Fig. 3. Judaeo-Arabic prescription - with a benediction at the beginning and the name of the patient at the end of the document [both in Judaeo-Arabic] T-S Ar.30.65 (recto)

Two letters written by Maimonides, in Judaeo-Arabic, containing medical advice and other issues have been discovered and are considered as prescriptions. These might be regarded as the “Third variation”.Footnote 82

Conclusions

It is important to state here that the author, like other scholars, strongly believes that theoretical and practical medicine among the members of the Jewish community of Cairo was the same as among the Muslim and Christian inhabitants of Cairo and the eastern Mediterranean. This was Graeco-Arabic medicine, irrespective of the language in which the books/prescriptions were written. However, prescriptions written in Judaeo-Arabic are clear-cut evidence and a reflection of practical medicine within the Jewish community of Cairo. Muslim or Christian physicians would not have used this language.

Understanding the reconstructed cycle of medical treatment and analysing it for the use of Judaeo-Arabic can lead us to the following insights/speculations, which also supply answers to most of the research questions set out at the beginning of the paper:

  1. 1. A Judaeo-Arabic prescription would have been written when at least two, more especially three, of the following agents (patient, physician, pharmacist,) were Jewish. We presume that a Jewish physician would not have written a prescription in Judaeo-Arabic for a Muslim or Christian patient, to prevent suspicions. Neither would a Jewish physician write in Judaeo-Arabic if the pharmacist was a Muslim or Christian (he would not have been able to read it).

  2. 2. A prescription was not needed at all if the patient went directly to the pharmacist or drug seller, or in the case of home/self-medication (see Fig. 4).

  3. 3. The “used” prescriptions were kept by the pharmacists or by the patients, and were deposited later with the rest of the written materials in the Genizah.

  4. 4. In a few cases the prescriptions are written in Judaeo-Arabic but the benedictions that open and close it are written in Arabic script (Fig. 1).

  5. 5. Letters written by medical practitioners contained detailed practical medical advice which can be considered prescriptions.Footnote 83

  6. 6. We can also speculate that the reason most of the prescriptions (as well as fragments of medical books and lists of materia medica) were written in Arabic is that this was the daily and most used language, and commercial activity widely involved Muslims and Christians.

  7. 7. Medical treatment was a more private and intimate activity conducted within the limits of the various communities, so a substantial number of prescriptions were written in Judaeo-Arabic.

  8. 8. Moreover, all medical notebooks so far discovered in the Taylor-Schechter and other British collections are written in Judaeo-Arabic. This feature might be explained in various ways: the main one is that the Jewish practitioners (physicians as well as pharmacists) preferred to write in this language when copying medical information (including recipes) from books in Arabic and in Judaeo-Arabic into their private notebooks for their private and professional use.Footnote 84

Fig. 4. The treatment cycle in medieval Cairo.

Footnotes

I wish to thank the Syndics of Cambridge University Library for their permission to publish the Genizah fragments.

References

1 Ullmann, M., Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh, 1978)Google Scholar; Levey, M., Early Arabic Pharmacology (Leiden, 1973)Google Scholar; Campbell, D., Arabian Medicine and its Influence on the Middle Ages (Amsterdam, 1926)Google Scholar; Conrad, L. I., ‘Arab-Islamic Medicine’, in Companion Encyclopedia of the History of Medicine eds. Bynum, W. F. & Porter, R. (London, 1993), I, pp. 676–727Google Scholar; E. T. Hermann, ‘Early Arabian Medicine’, Bulletin of the Medical Library Association, 25 (1936–7), pp. 113–117; Arnold, T. and Guillaume, A., The Legacy of Islam (Oxford, 1965)Google Scholar; Savage-Smith, E., ‘Medicine’, in Encyclopaedia of the History of Arabic Sciences, ed. Rashed, R. (London and New York, 1996), III, pp. 903–962Google Scholar; Pormann, P. E., and Savage-Smith, E., Medieval Islamic Medicine (Cairo, 2007).Google Scholar

2 See, e.g., Dols, M. W. (trans.) and Gamal, A. S. (ed.), Medieval Islamic Medicine, Ibn Riḍwān's Treatise “On the Prevention of Bodily Ills in Egypt” (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1984).Google Scholar

3 Goitein, S. D., A Mediterranean Society: the Jewish communities of the Arab world as portrayed in the documents of the Cairo Genizah (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1967, 1971), I, p. 210Google Scholar; II, p. 253.

4 H. D. Isaacs with the (assistance of C. F. Baker). Medical and Para-medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Collection (Cambridge, 1994).

5 E. Lev, ‘A Catalogue of the Medical and Para-Medical Manuscripts in the Rylands Genizah Collection, together with the edition of two medical documents’ (forthcoming).

6 Personal observations.

7 Lev, E. and Amar, Z., ‘Medieval Materia Medica – Practice vs. Theory – the Case of the Cairo Genizah’, Medical History, 51 (2007), pp. 507–526.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 E.g., T-S Or. 1081.J.39.

9 E.g., T-S Ar.30.305.

10 T-S NS J89; T-S K25.116; T-S NS 265.62.

11 T-S AS 150.59.

12 E.g., T-S Ar.30.305; T-S AS 142.22.

13 T-S Or.1081.J.39.

14 T-S NS 281.158.

15 T-S NS 90.65.

16 T-S K25.116; T-S K25.212; T-S Ar.30.16; T-S Ar.30.305; T-S Ar.30.65; T-S Ar.43.238; T-S Ar.43.338; T-S Ar.43.47; T-S Ar.43.54; T-S Ar.43.71; T-S Ar.44.162; T-S Ar.44.181; T-S AS 148.22; T-S AS 152.34; T-S AS 155.365; T-S AS 173.3; T-S AS 214.96; T-S NS 194.70; T-S NS 218.21; T-S NS 222.34; T-S NS 223.82–83; T-S 12.33; T-S 16.291; T-S 8J14.3; T-S 8J15.20; T-S Or.1081.1.66; T-S Or.1081.J.39.

17 T-S K25.116; T-S K25.212; T-S Ar.30.16; T-S Ar.30.305; T-S Ar.30.65; T-S Ar.43.238; T-S Ar.43.338; T-S Ar.43.47; T-S Ar.43.54; T-S Ar.43.71; T-S Ar.44.162; T-S Ar.44.181; T-S AS 148.22; T-S AS 152.34; T-S AS 155.365; T-S AS 173.3; T-S AS 214.96; T-S NS 194.70; T-S NS 218.21; T-S NS 222.34; T-S NS 223.82–83; T-S 12.33; T-S 16.291; T-S 8J14.3; T-S 8J15.20; T-S Or.1081.1.66; T-S Or.1081.J.39.

18 T-S Ar.30.286; T-S Ar.46.97.

19 Ibn Abī Uṣaybi˓a, ˓Uyūn al-˒Anbā˒ fī Ṭabaqāt al-˒Aṭṭibbā˒ (Beirut, 1965) (Arabic).

20 Lev, E., ‘Work in progress – the research of medical knowledge in the Cairo Genizah – past, present and future’, in The Written Word Remains – The archive and the achievement Ed. Reif, S., Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 37–51.Google Scholar

21 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 266.

22 T-S AS 119.315v.

23 T-S 13J5.1.

24 T-S Or.1080 J 7.

25 T-S 13J34.5.

26 T-S T-S 13J8.1.

27 T-S 10 J 7.8

28 T-S 13J3.4; T-S 13J14, f.25.

29 Goitein, S. D., ‘Maimonides' Life in the Light of the Geniza Documents’, Peraqim, 4 (1966), pp. 29–42.Google Scholar

30 BM Or.5566B.

31 T-S NS J422.

32 T-S NS 306.48v.

33 See in detail Lev op. cit. note 20 above.

34 T-S AS 152.131.

35 See, e.g., a letter from physician who left his practice in a small village near Cairo and tried to establish a medical career in Cairo – T-S Or. 1018 J5.

36 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, pp. 241–250.

37 T-S NS 321.34.

38 A. L. Motzkin, ‘A Thirteenth-Century Jewish Physician in Jerusalem’, Muslim World, 60 (1970): 344–349.

39 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 261.

40 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 265.

41 T-S NS.340.50, and few more, e.g., T-S 20.168; T-S K15.45.

42 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 261.

43 Ibid.; see for examples of ‘aţţār T-S Ar.39.356r; T-S NS 340.50v.

44 H. D. Isaacs (with the assistance of C.F. Baker). op. cit. Note 4 above, p. xi.

45 See in detail Lev op. cit. note 20 above, table 1.

46 T-S Or.1080 J23.

47 T-S Or.1080 J38.

48 Lev, E. and Amar, Z., ‘Reconstruction of the inventory of materia medica used by members of the Jewish community of medieval Cairo according to prescriptions found in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, Cambridge’, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 108 (2006), pp. 428–444.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

49 Lev, E., ‘Drugs held and sold by pharmacists of the Jewish community of medieval (eleventh to fourteenth centuries) Cairo according to lists of materia medica found at the Taylor-Schechter Genizah collection, Cambridge’, Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 110 (2007), pp. 275–293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

50 Lev and Amar, op. cit. note 7 above.

51 Lev, E. and Amar, Z., Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern Mediterranean according to the Cairo Genizah (Leiden, 2007), pp. 16–17.Google Scholar

52 See in detail Lev op. cit. note 20 above, table 3.

53 Dāwud Ibn Abī al-Bayān, al-Dustūr al-Bīmāristānī (Arabic) in ‘Le Formulaire des hôpitaux d'Ibn abil Bayan, médicin du bimaristan annacery au Caire au XIIIe siècle’, P. Sbath (ed.), Bullétin de l'Institut d'Egypte, 15 (1932–33), pp. 9–78.

54 Ibn Abī Uṣaybi˓a, op. cit. note 19 above, p. 584.

55 Lev, E., Chipman, L., and Niessen, F., ‘A Hospital Handbook for the Community: Evidence for the extensive use of Ibn Abī ‘l-Bayān's al-Dustūr al-bīmāristānī by the Jewish practitioners of medieval Cairo’, Journal of Semitic Studies 53 (2008), pp. 103–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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57 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 264–265.

58 T-S Ar.40.91.

59 Chipman, L. and Lev, E., ‘Syrup from the apothecary's shop: A Genizah fragment containing one of the earliest manuscripts of Minhaj al-dukkan’, Journal of Semitic Studies, 51 (2006), pp. 137–168.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

60 T-S AS 161.23.

61 Ibn al-Bayan, op. cit. note 53 above, p. 59.

62 Lev and Amar, op. cit. note 51 above, pp. 48–49.

63 T-S K14.32.

64 T-S Ar.45.21.

65 T-S Or 1080 7.17.

66 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 267, note 44.

67 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 266, note 29.

68 E. Lev, L. Chipman and F. Niessen, ‘Chicken and chicory are good for you. A Unique Family Prescription from the Cairo Genizah (T_S NS 223. 82–83)', Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and Islam (forthcoming).

69 Goitein, op. cit. note 3 above, II, p. 266.

70 Isaacs and Baker, op. cit. note 4 above, see indices.

71 Lev and Amar, op. cit. note 51 above, p. 47.

72 Isaacs and Baker, op. cit. note 4 above, p. xiv.

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79 Ahmed et al., op. cit. note 78 above.

80 See, e.g., T-S Ar.30.305.

81 See, e.g., T-S K25.116; T-S 8J15.20.

82 E.g., T-S Ar.46.97; T-S Ar.30.286; see also Stern, S. M., Corpus Codicum Hebraicorum Medii Aevi (Copenhagen, 1956). Part I, III, pp. 12–21.Google Scholar

83 E.g., T-S Ar.46.97; T-S Ar.30.286.

84 I intend to deal with this issue in detail in a future publication.

Figure 0

Fig. 1. Judaeo-Arabic prescription – with Arabic benedictions (T-S Ar.30.305).

Figure 1

Fig. 2. Judaeo-Arabic prescription – with the name of patient written in Arabic at the beginning of the document and a benediction at the end (T-S Or.1081.J.39)

Figure 2

Fig. 3. Judaeo-Arabic prescription - with a benediction at the beginning and the name of the patient at the end of the document [both in Judaeo-Arabic] T-S Ar.30.65 (recto)

Figure 3

Fig. 4. The treatment cycle in medieval Cairo.