Catalogue: Pharmaceutics
[14] [Recipes] (MS P 24, item 3)
An anonymous and untitled collection of recipes for compound drugs serving as tonics to increase the pleasure of sexual intercourse. There are also recipes for antidotes to animal and plant poisons.
No other copy has been identified.
Physical Description
Persian. 5 leaves (fols. 23a-27b) Dimensions 21.7 x 14.5 (text area 15.1 x 8.7) cm; 8-12 lines per page.
The copy is undated and unsigned. The general appearance of the paper, ink, script, and illustrations (in the other two items in the volume) suggests a date of the 18th century and a locale of north-west India, especially Kashmir.
The treatise is written in a fine professional medium-small ta‘liq script, in dense black ink with headings in red. The same hand transcribed all the items in the volume. All the folios in this portion of the manuscript have the text framed in borders of blue, red, black, and gilt lines enclosing a vine with leaves outlined in red and green. There are catchwords.
The gray-brown, semi-glossy paper has horizontal, sagging laid lines but no visible chain lines. The text areas have a gold-sprinkled ground. The paper has foxing and staining, and many leaves have been repaired. The edges have been trimmed from their orignal size. Fols. 1 and 2 are damaged and repaired and guarded.
The volume consists of 29 leaves. Fol. 1a is blank. MS P 24, item 1 (fols. 1b-10b) is Ladhdhat al-nisā’ by Ziyā’ [al-Dīn] Nakhshabī; MS P 24, item 2 (fols. 11a-22b) consists of illustrated love poetry, anon. and untitled; and item 3 (fols. 23a-27b) are the recipes here catalogued. Fol. 28a has miscellaneous notes and verses in later hands written upside down within the decorative frame; fols. 28b, 29a and 29b are blank except for the decorative frame.
Binding
The volume is bound is a fine example of a 19th-century French art nouveau binding of stamped and dyed leather. It has an overall non-repetitive design of fans decorated with marine animals, birds, flowers, and Oriental human figures. There are French marbled paper endpapers and pastedowns.
Provenance
On fol. 14a there is the impression of an oval owner's stamp which has the Arabic numeral 12 and appears to read ya' Karim. On fol. 21a there is an impression of a different oval owner's stamp, undated.
The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A. S. Yahuda. No further information on provenance is available.
References
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry P24, p. 337. This item not described.
NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-136 no. 4
[On compound remedies] (MS P 26, item 5)
An anonymous and untitled treatise on compound remedies, beginning with eye medicaments.
No other copy has been identified.
Physical Description
Persian. 5 leaves (fols. 109b-113a). Dimensions 18.8 x 12.5 (text area 11.5 x 6) cm. No title or author is given.
The manuscript is undated, but the appearance of the paper, ink, and handwriting suggests a dating of the early 18th century. This item in the volume was copied by the same unnamed copyist who transcribed the other items in the volume.
The text is written in a small, careful naskh tending toward ta‘liq in black ink with headings in red. There are catchwords.
The very glossy beige paper has occasional thin patches and indistinct wavy horizontal laid lines, but no chain lines. The same paper was used throughout the volume. There is waterstaining on the three open sides of all the leaves. The edges or corner of a number of leaves have been repaired. There has been some earlier numbering of some folios in pencilled Western numerals, but they are badly out of sequence with the recent foliation.
The volume consists of 118 leaves. Item 1 (fols. 1a-19b) is an anonymous and untitled tabular treatise on foods (MS P 26, item 1), and item 2 (fols. 20a-62b) on food and drink, untitled, by Vaṭvāṭ (MS P 26, item 2). Item 3 (fols. 62b-88b) is the Maqālat fī al-‘izām lil-muta‘allimīn by Galen (MS P 26, item 3), and item 4 (fols. 88b-109a) the Maqālat fī tashrīḥ al-‘aḍal also by Galen (MS P 26, item 4). Item 5 (fols. 109b-113a) contains compound remedies, anonymous and untitled here catalogued, and item 6 (fols. 113a-118b) is an anonymous and untitled tract on sexual hygiene (MS P 26, item 6).
Binding
The volume is bound in a modern binding of brown leather over pasteboards. There are modern paper pastedowns and endpapers.
Provenance
The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A.S. Yahuda (ELS 2375).
References
Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of incun. & MSS., entry P26, p. 338. This item is not mentioned.
NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-137 no. 1
