Catalogue: Pharmaceutics
[Recipes for compound remedies] (MS A 68, item 2)
A short anonymous and untitled Persian text, written diagonally, consisting mostly of recipes.
No other copy has been identified.
Illustrations
The volume is bound in pasteboards covered with black leather. The covers are decorated with deeply-stamped blind, scalloped mandorla medallions with pendants; the inner fields are filled with flowers and leaves. This design is surrounded by two frames, one of deeply-impressed blind-stamped sprays of flowers with leaves and the other of deep-set S-shaped leaves. There are corner pieces on the covers filled with flowers and leaves.
Physical Description
Arabic. 2 leaves (fols. 133b-134a). Dimensions 21.2 x 12.2 (text area 13.2 x 6.4) cm; lines per page variable. No author or title are given.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the late 19th century.
The text was copied by a hand very similar to that in the first item in the volume, which is written in a small naskh script. The text area has been frame-ruled, but the text itself is written diagonally within the ruled area and consequently does not follow the rulings. It is written in black ink with headings and overlinings in a purplish-red ink.
The beige, matte-finish, thin paper has neither laid lines nor chain lines visible.
The volume consists of 134 leaves. Fols. 1b, 2ab, 4ab, 5a, 65b, 100b, 101a, 133a, and 134b are blank. Fol. 1a is blank except for an owner's stamp (impressed twice), an owner's signature, and a recent penciled note in Arabic which says: Sharh Qanunchah ‘arabi ('An Arabic commentary on the Qānūnchah'). Fols. 3a and 3b contain unidentified Persian quatrains. Fols. 5b-132b (item 1) contain the commentary on the Qānūnchah of Jaghmīnī by al-Āstarābādhī (MS A 68, item 1); fols. 133b-134a (item 2) have the collection of recipes here catalogued.
Binding
The volume is bound in pasteboards covered with black leather. The covers are decorated with deeply-stamped blind, scalloped mandorla medallions with pendants. This design is surrounded by two frames, one of deeply-impressed blind-stamped sprays of flowers with leaves and the other of deep-set S-shaped leaves. There are corner pieces on the covers filled with flowers and leaves. There are pastedowns of purplish paper; but no endpapers.
Provenance
An owner's stamp (not legible) is impressed twice on fol. 1a, where there is also un unreadable owner's signature.
The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A.S. Yahuda, who acquired it in Istanbul (ELS 1664 bis). Old numbers ELS 799 and M.69A are also written in it.
References
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., p. 320 entry A 68. This item is not described.
NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 46-126 no. 1
[Collection of Recipes] (MS A 92, item 2)
An anonymous, untitled, collection of recipes
No other copy has been identified.
Physical Description
Arabic. 9 pages (pp. 68-76 [old 66-74]). Dimensions 21.0 x 15.0 (text area 14.7 x 7.5 and 15 x 11) cm; 21 lines per page. No author or title given.
The first eight recipes on the first three pages (pp. 68-70, line 4) were written by the same copyist as the first item in the volume, which was completed by an unnamed copyist on 8 Rabi‘ I 1058 (= 2 April 1648); see (MS A 92, item 1). The remaining recipes are written in different hands and in a slightly larger text area.
The first eight recipes are written in a small naskh script using grey ink with headings in red. Thereafter the recipes are written in a medium-small or medium-large naskh script, more casually written with black ink and red overlinings or red highlighting. There are catchwords.
There are some marginalia, mostly additional recipes.
The volume has been paginated rather than foliated, and the most recent pagination replaces an older one in Arabic numerals still visible on the leaves.
The cream paper has laid lines and single chain lines. The same paper appears to have been used throughout the volume, although the copyists change. There is extensive water damage and some folios are worm-eaten; some folios are repaired.
The volume consists of 220 pages and two preliminary pages. The volume has a recent pagination that replaces an older one using Arabic numerals. Page 220 [old 218] is blank. Item 1 (preliminary p. 2, and pp 1-67 [old pp. 1-65]) is Ṭibb al-fuqarā’ wa-al-masākīn by Ibn al-Jazzār (MS A 92, item 1). Item 2 (pp. 68-76 [old 66-74]) is the anonymous collection of recipes here catalogued; item 3 (pp. 77-105 [old 75-103]) is Zād al-masīr fī ‘ilāj al-bawāsīr by al-Qawṣūnī (MS A 92, item 3); item 4 (pp. 106-116 [old 104-114]) is anonymous collection of mujarrabat recipes and procedures (MS A 92, item 4); and item 5 (pp. 117-219 [old 115-217]) consists of Nuzhat al-adhhān fī aṣlāḥ al-abdān by Dā’ūd ibn ‘Umar al-Anṭākī (MS A 92, item 5). Preliminary p. 1 has talismanic miscellaneous notes and recipes written in later hands.
Binding
The volume is bound in a tan leather modern library binding. There are modern pastedowns and endpapers.
Provenance
In the collection of the Army Medical Library since 1946; provenance unknown.
References
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry A92 item 2, p. 329
NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-130 no 2.
