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Alain.R.Truong
3 août 2018

Miniature from a copy of Kitab al-hashaish, “Viper’s Bugloss”, Iraq, Baghdad (?); 1224

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Miniature from a copy of Kitab al-hashaish an Arabic translation of Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica. “Viper’s Bugloss”, Iraq, Baghdad (?); 1224. Leaf: 32.5 × 23 cm. Inv. no. 18/1988. © The David Collection.

Pharmacology in classical Arab culture can be said to have drawn on three major sources: popular medicine (both local Arab medicine and knowledge acquired from the peoples of conquered lands),translations of works about medicines from earlier cultures, and Arab physicians’ own observations and experiences.

This fragment, from a 13th-century transcription of Dioscorides’s De Materia Medica (written in the 1st century), contains a description of the herb luqabsus (from the Greek lykapsos), probably viper’s bugloss. In order to avoid misunderstandings and mistranslations, many medicinal plants were illustrated, and their Greek names were carefully transliterated into Arabic. This made it possible for those with a knowledge of Greek to verify and if necessary correct identifications of species. Manuscripts of this type are among the oldest with illustrations known from the Islamic cultural sphere.
 
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