HERB - Avicenna = Ibn Sina

[Roos cc]

Sorry, I should have led off with some background info.

Avicenna is how you will see the name in European
period sources; Ibn Sina in most modern sources.
He was an Arab physician and philosopher (980-1037)
and wrote about a 100 books/treatises on various
topics. *The Canon of Medicine* is al-Qanum fit-tibb
(I think: I don't know much about Arabic). It was
translated early on by Gerard of Cremona (I don't
have a date on this).

I don't have any information on manuscript 
transmission--it was "widely" circulated.
After the printing press, there were a number of
Latin editions. Gruner (the English translation) did
not give any details, but was working from Latin
versions "published at Venice in 1608 and 1595, 
supported by a study of the Arabic edition printed 
at Rome in 1593 and the Bulaq edition."

*The Canon of Medicine* consists of five books:
I. General matters (this is the one in English); II.
Materia medica (this is the one we want!); III. Medical
and Surgical; IV. Special diseases and the cosmetic art;
V. Formulary.

The big picture: Galen was a Greek physician in
Rome (ca. 140-200) who wrote extensively and
quoted older Greek physicians (some we only know 
about through the quotes, others are Hippocrates, etc.)
After the fall of Rome, much of this material was
lost in the West, including philosophic works such
as Aristotle. These works did survive in the East.
Arab physicians such as Avicenna worked with
these texts and added to them (even incorporated
medical material from India and perhaps China).

It was through the Arab texts that this body of
knowledge came back to the West, around the 12th
century, with a big impact on thinking. These and
commentaries on them were the "course books" for
medieval physicians. The great herbals in the
16th century include a medical aspect, but they
also had a taxonomic agenda--they were trying
to work out a reliable classification on plants
(Linnaeus (1707-1778) didn't start from scratch!).
Given the interest in classifying, these herbals
do not say much about the background theory.

I've been trying to get a basic idea of what that
background theory was--you would think somebody
would have written a nice introductory book on this!?!

Right now I have the Gruner on extended loan so I can
post parts of it to the list. I also have a translation
of Ibn Ridwan *On the Prevention of Bodily Ills in
Egypt* (Michael W. Dols, *Medieval Islamic Medicine*
[Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984]). 
This is a translation from a manuscript in the 
National Library, Cairo. I don't believe it circulated 
in the West, but Ibn Ridwan was a contemporary of
Avicenna and this treatise is an example of the
background theory at work.

Alysoun de Ros
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