Catalogue: Pharmaceutics
Five anonymous medical formularies are contained in NLM MS A 91, a volume of mixed contents. The details of the five individual tracts will be described, followed by the general description of the volume of which they form a part.
An anonymous, untitled short essay on foodstuffs and compound remedies.
No other copy has been identified.
Arabic. 1 page (p. 45 [old 59] only). Dimensions 21.5 x 15.7 (text area 16.5 x 10.5) cm; 21 lines per page.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the 17th or 18th century.
The text is written in a small naskh script, with black ink and headings in red. It is a fluid script with a number of ligatures. There are catchwords. It differs slightly from the hand that transcribed most of the items in the volume.
[On compound remedies] (MS A 91, item 6)
An anonymous. untitled collection of miscellaneous recipes and notes. The text states that this material was transcribed from the marginalia and notes found in other manuscripts.
No other copy has been identified.
Arabic. 7 pages (pp. 97 [old 111] to 103 [old 117], line 3). Dimensions 21.5 x 15.7 (text area 16.5 x 10.5) cm; 21 lines per page.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the 17th or 18th century.
The text is written in a medium-small naskh script, with black ink and headings in red. It is a fluid script with a number of ligatures. There are catchwords. This hand appears to have been responsible for most of the items in the volume.
-
Ṣifat ma‘jūn nāfi‘ lil-ma‘idah
(MS A 91, item 8)
- (Recipe for an electuary useful for the stomach)
- صفة معجون نافع للمعدة
This is not a single recipe, as its title suggests, but an anonymous collection of recipes. At the very end of the treatise (p. 109 [old 123], bottom line) there is the statement: 'from the writing Shams al-ma‘arif , a composition of al-shaykh al-Būnī (min mudawwanah Shams al-ma‘arif ta'lif al-shaykh al-Būnī). This is a reference to the most widely read medieval Islamic treatise on talismans, magic squares, and various occult properties by Abu al-‘Abbas al-Buni', who died in 1225/622. However, the material here presented does not align with material in the book Shams al-ma‘arif, which is preserved today in numerous copies and has been printed many times.
No other copy has been identified.
Arabic. 4 pages (pp. 106 [old 120], line 8, to 109 [old 123]). Dimensions 21.5 x 15.7 (text area 16.5 x 10.5) cm; 21 lines per page.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the 17th or 18th century.
The text is written in a medium-small naskh script, with black ink and headings in red. It is a fluid script with a number of ligatures. There are catchwords. This hand appears to have been responsible for most of the items in the volume.
[On compound remedies] (MS A 91, item 12)
An incomplete copy of an anonymous, untitled treatise on compound remedies presented in alphabetical order.
No other copy has been identified.
Arabic. 4 pages (pp. 189 [old 195] to 253 [old 259]). Dimensions 21.5 x 15.7 (text area 16.5 x 10.5) cm; 21 lines per page.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the 17th or 18th century.
The first of the text is missing.
The text is written in a medium-small naskh script, with black ink and headings in red. It is a fluid script with a number of ligatures. There are catchwords. This hand appears to have been responsible for most of the items in the volume.
There are a few marginalia by a later reader.
[On compound remedies] (MS A 91, item 14)
An anonymous, untitled collection of recipes for tablets (habb) useful for various conditions. It opens with some poetry.
No other copy has been identified.
Arabic. 5 pages (p. 262, line 5, to p. 268). Dimensions 21.5 x 15.7 (text area 16.5 x 10.5) cm; 21 lines per page. No author or title given
The copy is undated and unsigned. The appearance of the paper, script, and ink suggests a date of the 17th or 18th century.
There is a slight break in the subject between p. 266 and 267, for tablets (habb) are not longer the type of compound remedy, and there is no catchword at the bottom of p. 266. It is possibly that p. 267 is misplaced.
The text is written in a medium-small naskh script, with black ink and headings in red. It is a fluid script with a number of ligatures. There are catchwords on two of the leaves. This hand appears to have been responsible for most of the items in the volume.
Physical Description
The volume has been paginated rather than foliated. The volume has been recently repaginated in Western numerals. There is an early pagination in Arabic numerals which places the numeral 15 on the first page of the present volume, with the subsequent numbering containing some mistakes and omissions. Therefore, it is evident that the first 14 pages of the manuscript are now missing. According to this earlier pagination, there are also leaves missing after pp. 44 (old 58), 182 (old 186), 188 (old 194), and 220 (old 227). There are also section numbers (nos. 40-694) in the margins, and this marginal numbering is continuous, unbroken by missing leaves, except at the beginning, indicating that it was written after the later missing leaves had disappeared but before the opening leaves were lost. The page references are to the Western pagination, followed by the old pagination.
The same paper has been used throughout the volume. It is a thick, glossy, light-beige (darkened near the edges) paper with laid lines, single chain lines, and watermarks. The paper is greatly soiled by thumbing and with grime, and is waterstained near the edges. The edges have been repaired on several leaves.
The volume consists of 268 leaves. Item 1 (pp. 1-44) is the Mu‘alajat al-amrāḍ al-khaṭirah al-bādiyah ‘alá al-badan min khārij by Ibn al-Kattānī (MS A 91, item 1). Item 2 (p. 44) untitled and anonymous writing on foodstuffs (MS A 91, item 2); item 3 (p. 45) is here catalogued; item 4 (pp. 46-91) is a therapeutic mujarrabat manual by Muḥammad ibn Khamrah (MS A 91, item 4); item 5 (pp. 91-96) an anonymous treatise titled Risālah fī khawāṣṣ al-panzahr (MS A 91, item 5); item 6 (pp. 97-103) is here catalogued; item 7 (pp. 103-106) is an anonymous discourse titled al-Qawl fī faḍl al-fatīḥah (MS A 91, item 7); item 8 (pp. 106-109) is here catalogued; item 9 (pp. 110-119) in an essay on Prophetic traditions by al-Shaykh Abū al-‘Abbās known as Ibn al-Mīlaq, or Ibn Maylaq (MS A 91, item 9); item 10 (pp. 120-182) an anonymous treatise Kitab al-Khawass (MS A 91, item 10); item 11 (pp. 183-188) on medicinal plants, untitled and anonymous (MS A 91, item 11); item 12 (pp. 189-253) is here catalogued; item 13 (pp. 254-262) is al-Jawhar al-fard fī mufākharat al-narjis wa-al-ward possibly by Abū al-Ḥasan ‘Alī ibn al-Musharraf al-Māridīnī (MS A 91, item 13); and the final item (pp. 262-268) is here catalogued.
Binding
The volume is bound in a dark-brown leather modern library binding. There are modern paper pastedowns and endpapers.
Provenance
At the lower right corner of p. 96 [old 110] there is an owner's inscription stating that the owner (sahibuhu wa-malikuhu) was al-Sayyid Muḥammad al-Ḥakīm.
The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A. S. Yahuda who acquired it from a dealer in Damascus, Syria (ELS 1700 Med. 31).
References
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry A91 item 2, p. 329. These items are not included.
NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-130, no. 1
