Sabur Ibn Sahl's Dispensatory in the Recension of the Adudi Hospital

Sābūr ibn Sahl’s Dispensatory in the Recension of the ʿAḍudī Hospital

Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science Texts and Studies

Edited by

H. Daiber

VOLUME LXXVIII

Sābūr ibn Sahl’s Dispensatory in the Recension of the ʿAḍudī Hospital by

Oliver Kahl

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009

On the cover: ‘Map of Iraq’ (leaf from a medieval Arabic manuscript on climates) This book is printed on acid-free paper.

ISSN 0169 8729 ISBN 978 90 0417124 4 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

filio meo Lukaso carissimo nec vero affectionis causa non amicitiae hunc librum dedico

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements ............................................................................

ix

Introduction ........................................................................................ 1. Sābūr ibn Sahl’s Dispensatory ............................................... 2. The Hospital Epitome ............................................................. a. The Arabic Manuscript ....................................................... b. External Structure ............................................................... c. Internal Structure ................................................................ d. Metrological Units .............................................................. e. Pharmacological Apparatus ............................................... f. Applicative Categories ......................................................... Plate ............................................................................................

1 1 7 7 8 10 14 15 17 19

Arabic Text .........................................................................................

21

English Translation ...........................................................................

117

Bibliography ........................................................................................

227

Glossary of Technical Terms ........................................................... 1. Substances and Products ........................................................ a. English—Arabic ................................................................... b. Arabic—English ................................................................... 2. Pathology and Anatomy ......................................................... a. English—Arabic ................................................................... b. Arabic—English ................................................................... 3. Botanical Names ....................................................................... a. English—Latin ..................................................................... b. Latin—English ..................................................................... 4. Generic Drug Names ...............................................................

231 231 231 239 246 246 252 257 257 260 263

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thanks are due to Fuat Sezgin (Frankfurt) who generously lent me his microfilm of the manuscript Munich arab. 808; Manfred Ullmann (Tübingen) who communicated to me a number of philological observations regarding my recent edition and translation of the dispensatory of Ibn at-Tilmīd̠, some of which have also informed the present study; Nikolai Serikoff (London) who on my behalf spent many hours of his valuable time scanning through the entire encyclopaedia of al-Maǧūsī in fruitless search of a quotation; Hans Daiber (Düsseldorf ) who kindly accepted this book, too, for publication in the IPTS series; my editor Trudy Kamperveen (Leiden) who once again displayed that rare mix of competence and cordiality; the staff of the Rylands University Library of Manchester who were very helpful; Deniz Ertan who made her little flat available to me whenever I needed a place to stay in Manchester; and to Karine as always for everything. O. Kahl Sheffield

INTRODUCTION∗

1. Sābūr ibn Sahl’s Dispensatory Sābūr ibn Sahl was a Nestorian physician and pharmacologist who worked at the hospital of Gondēšāpūr in southwestern Iran before he moved to Baghdad, joining the circle of medical advisers to the Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil (reg. 232/847–247/861); Sābūr died on 21 D̠ ū l-Ḥ iǧǧa 255 / 30 November 869,1 probably in Samarra—and this is basically all we know about his life.2 As regards his literary work, Sābūr figures as the author of a handful of medico-pharmacological writings,3 but his main gift to posterity is the dispensatory (aqrābād̠ īn) whose textual transmission and historical significance will be discussed in the following. The first manuscript containing Sābūr ibn Sahl’s dispensatory was registered in 1866 by the Bavarian curator Joseph Aumer (MS Munich Staatsbibliothek arab. 808/2)4 and it remained, for more than two generations, the only known textual witness, attracting little, if any, scholarly attention; then, in 1938, Paul Sbath discovered a second manuscript in a Syrian private library (MS Aleppo Mānūk 348);5 three further manuscripts from Iran were found, respectively, in 1960 by Ṣalāḥaddīn al-Munaǧǧid (MS Tehran Malik 4234),6 in 1962 by Muḥammad Taqī Dāniš-Pažūh and Īraǧ Afšār (MS Tehran Sanā 3258/20),7 and in 1970 by Fuat Sezgin (MS Tehran Malik 4573/40);8 the last manuscript on current record was described by Rudolf Sellheim in 1976 (MS Berlin

∗ The system of transliteration used in this book is that of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft. 1 Julian calendar (or 4 December 869 Gregorian calendar). 2 For a list of biographical sources and relevant secondary literature see Kahl Sābūr1 33 note 70 (adding Kahl “Sābūr” 694 and “Note” passim). 3 For these see GaS 3/244 with Kahl Sābūr 2 12f. (two preserved, three lost). 4 See Aumer Handschriften 355f. 5 See Sbath Fihris 1/46. 6 See Munaǧǧid “Nawādir” 74. 7 See BBCUT 246. 8 See GaS 3/186.

2

introduction

Staatsbibliothek or.oct. 1839).9 In terms of their age, these six manuscripts can be arranged as follows: MS Berlin Staatsbibliothek or.oct. 1839: copied ca. 300/912 (17 chapters) MS Tehran Malik 4234: copied 734/1333 (17 chapters) MS Munich Staatsbibliothek arab. 808/2: copied 741/1341 (16 chapters) MS Tehran Malik 4573/40: copied 1096/1685 (25 chapters) MS Tehran Sanā 3258/20: copied 11th/17th century (25 chapters) MS Aleppo Mānūk 348: ? Considering that the importance of Sābūr ibn Sahl’s dispensatory for our understanding of mediaeval Arabic pharmacology echoes through scientific literature ever since Max Meyerhof declared its publication a priority task in the late 1930s,10 one may wonder why it has not long since been done and dusted. The main reason for this lack of enthusiasm seems to be that the picture which emerges from a closer examination of the manuscript tradition is far from being clear or coherent—that, in fact, Sābūr’s dispensatory is represented here by at least two separate versions, in different stages of literary adaptation, and on extremely varying levels of textual integrity. In order to appreciate the problem we need to go back to the Arabic sources first, and proceed from there to take a look at what modern scholarship has to say about the manuscript tradition. The earliest source mentioning Sābūr’s dispensatory is the medical encyclopaedist ar-Rāzī (d. 313/925 or 323/935) who, in addition to the passages introduced merely by Sābūr’s name, several times quotes a “large”11 and at least twice a “middle dispensatory of Sābūr”12—which naturally implies the existence of a ‘small’ one; then, the bibliographer Ibn an-Nadīm (d. 380/990) refers to Sābūr as the author of a “dispensatory in 22 chapters”;13 and lastly, the chronicler Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa (d. 668/1270) maintains that Sābūr authored a “large dispensatory in 17 chapters”.14 From these statements, laconic as they are, we learn the important fact that Sābūr’s dispensatory circulated

9

See MaL 1/216–224. See Mieli Science 282. 11 See Rāzī Ḥ āwī 1/36, 2/28, 2/144, 2/219, 6/248, 9/170, 10/199, 10/238, 10/303, 11/55, 11/176, and 11/183. 12 See Rāzī Ḥ āwī 7/220 and 11/21. 13 See Ibn an-Nadīm Fihrist 1/297 (thence Ibn al-Qifṭī Ḥ ukamāʾ 207 and Barhebraeus Duwal 147). 14 See Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa ʿUyūn 1/161. 10

introduction

3

in three versions (small-middle-large),15 and further that there existed a version in 17 and another in 22 chapters. Numerous quotations and/or extracts from Sābūr’s dispensatory, some of them substantial, are, to be sure, scattered throughout Arabic medico-pharmacological literature,16 but they come either as silent or else unspecific citations17 and can therefore not be linked to a particular version. Returning to the manuscript tradition, few scholars have so far tackled this problem in any meaningful way. There are a couple of articles by Sami Hamarneh who in 1961 dealt with the Munich manuscript18 and in 1979 with the three Tehran manuscripts,19 and whilst he does so in a rather descriptive and cursory fashion he nonetheless was the first to observe the apparent disparity between the indirect evidence given by the Arabic sources and the direct evidence borne by the manuscript tradition. In 1976 Rudolf Sellheim made a cautious and partly successful attempt at identifying the fragmentary and hence anonymous Berlin manuscript,20 correctly attributing its composition to Sābūr but wrongly associating it with a fictitious literary production.21 The single most important contribution, prior to my own efforts to shed some light on the matter, is an article published in 1974 by Rainer Degen and Manfred Ullmann, analysing the Munich and Tehran Sanā manuscripts in a philological study whose results can be summarised as follows: the Munich manuscript represents a revised, rearranged and abridged edition of an unspecified version of Sābūr’s dispensatory as compiled and used by the physicians of the ʿAḍudī hospital in Baghdad shortly before or around the middle of the 5th/11th century; the Tehran Sanā manuscript represents a revised and augmented edition of the large version of Sābūr’s dispensatory, showing traces of an earlier revision by Yūḥannā ibn Sarābiyūn (fl. late 3rd/9th

15 Whether or not Sābūr himself can actually be credited with the compilation of all versions is impossible to say; equally irresolvable, and for our purposes irrelevant, is the question whether his dispensatory was originally conceived in the Syriac or in the Arabic language, cf. MaL 1/221f. with Strohmaier “Kahl” 208 (Syriac) and Kahl Sābūr2 26f. (Arabic) respectively. 16 See e.g. Kahl Sābūr 2 29 (adding Kaskarī [fl. 307/920] Kunnāš passim). 17 The latter running under “by Sābūr” or “from the dispensatory of Sābūr”. 18 See Hamarneh “Sābūr1” passim. 19 See Hamarneh “Sābūr2” passim. 20 See MaL 1/216f. 21 Namely the kitāb fī ṣanʿat al-adwiya al-murakkaba al-muḫtāra “book on the preparation of select compounds” (sic incipiunt MSS Tehran Malik 4573/40 and Sanā 3258/20), a paraphrastic pseudo-title detached from presumably all three versions of Sābūr’s original dispensatory, cf. Kahl Sābūr 1 17f.

4

introduction

century), and put together sometime after the middle of the 6th/12th century by a Persian redactor who additionally invented the tale that his compilation is a translation from Syriac.22 And in 1994 I have tried to show that the Berlin manuscript actually represents an early and authentic edition of the small version of Sābūr’s dispensatory; that the Tehran Malik 4234 manuscript represents a late and muddled edition of that same version, compiled by a Persian redactor who also perpetuates the tale of a Syriac translation; and that the Tehran Malik 4573 manuscript represents an edition which is chronologically and contextually identical with the Tehran Sanā manuscript.23 Finally, it should be noted that the identity of the inaccessible Aleppo manuscript remains uncertain, though Fuat Sezgin seems to consider it a representative of the large version of Sābūr’s dispensatory.24 These findings, taken all together, suggest that Ibn an-Nadīm’s mention of a dispensatory in 22 chapters must refer to the original size of the large version, whilst Ibn Abī Uṣaibiʿa’s mention of a large dispensatory in 17 chapters is either a mistake (leg. small) or else a reference to an otherwise unattested abridgement of that version. The textual history of Sābūr ibn Sahl’s dispensatory can be illustrated by the following diagram (see next page). In 1994 I published an edition and in 2003 a translation of the small version of Sābūr ibn Sahl’s dispensatory on the basis of the old Berlin manuscript,25 and my current edition and translation of the hospital epitome as preserved in the Munich manuscript is another homage to Sābūr’s pharmacological legacy. Looking into the future, I am not sure whether I will visit that subject again—I have grown a bit weary

22

See Degen/Ullmann “Sābūr” 253–257. See Kahl Sābūr 1 16–20. 24 See GaS 3/244. 25 See Kahl Sābūr 1 (edition) and Sābūr2 (translation). I would like to take this opportunity and briefly respond to an accusation which has been made by Manfred Ullmann in a review of my work (see Ullmann “Kahl” passim) and echoed in wholesale fashion by some younger colleagues (Akasoy, Pormann)—namely that I neglected the ‘secondary transmission’ (Nebenüberlieferung), i.e. the body of quotations and/or extracts from Sābūr’s dispensatory as found in later Arabic medico-pharmacological literature. As I thought I had explained well enough in the introductory study to my edition, these secondary transmissions carry no label of specification whatsoever which would allow us to assign them with any certainty to a particular version of Sābūr’s dispensatory and hence, their ‘approximate’ incorporation into the small version would have been a rather haphazard enterprise, producing a garbled and in the end ahistorical text. Whether the fragments which make up the secondary transmission are valuable or not is an entirely different question. 23

introduction

5

[Autograph]

versio

small (17 chs.)

middle

MS Berlin

?

large (22 chs.)

revision by Serapion < ~ 880 CE >

< ~ 912 CE >

intermediate editions

revised, rearranged and abridged edition by the physicians of the ʿAḍudī hospital in Baghdad (16 chs.) < ~ 1040 CE >

MS Tehran Malik 4234

MS Munich

< Iran, 1333 CE >

< 1341 CE >

?

MS Aleppo

?

abridgement (17 chs.) revised and augmented edition (25 chs.) < Iran, after 1150 CE >

MS Tehran Malik 4573

MS Tehran Sanā

< 1685 CE >

< 17th century CE >

6

introduction

of Sābūr’s company over the years. There remains, no doubt, a lot of work to be done: we need to edit and translate the large version of Sābūr’s dispensatory which is represented by the Tehran Sanā and Malik 4573 manuscripts;26 edit and translate the prolegomena to the small version (chapters 1–4) which are missing in the Berlin manuscript but retained by the Tehran Malik 4234 manuscript; track down, verify and, if appropriate, publish the Aleppo manuscript, too; assemble a toolbox containing all fragments which explicitly or implicitly relate to Sābūr’s dispensatory; in time create some sort of Corpus Saburianum which could provide the starting point for a large-scale reconstruction of Eastern Arabic pharmacology in the 3rd/9th century; and so on and so forth. In conclusion of this preliminary section and before examining the hospital epitome in greater detail, a few general observations may be fitting. The title of the Munich manuscript reads: “the dispensatory of Sābūr according to the copy of the ʿAḍudī hospital, (being) a synopsis of Sābūr’s dispensatory on the composition of drugs, (in) sixteen chapters”—which means that the text so described represents a clinical recension and at the same time an abridgement of Sābūr ibn Sahl’s dispensatory. Several references in the text to various ‘copies’ of Sābūr’s dispensatory27 imply a composite recension, though we cannot yet say for sure whether the physicians who were responsible for its compilation drew on different versions of the original or simply collated exponents of the same strand. Whilst the declared intention to condense information manifests itself only on a relatively minor scale, the extent of the revision in qualitative and structural terms was quite substantial, resulting in the inclusion of otherwise unattested material and, moreover, in a complete rearrangement of the chapter sequence as compared to both the small and large versions of the original. Interestingly, the last chapter on the uses and [occult] properties of animal [and human] parts28—discarded from the small version of the original—has

26 In the summer of 2007 I received a letter from an Iranian colleague (whose name I do not recall), announcing work in progress towards a publication of “Shapors prominent compendium” (this phrase I do recall); our e-mail exchange was cheerful but short, so I have no idea what, if anything, might be coming from that quarter. 27 See p. 11 below. 28 Despite the fact that Galen the famous poured his wrath over the Dreckapotheke as displayed in Xenocrates of Aphrodisias’ (fl. 70 CE) Περὶ τῆς ἀπὸ τῶν ζῴων ὠφελείας, the subject enjoyed great popularity among physicians of later antiquity and many of their mediaeval Arab counterparts were no less intrigued by it, see e.g. Nutton Medicine 268 and Ullmann NGw 10f.

introduction

7

been kept by the compilers of the hospital epitome who copied it more or less literally from the concluding chapter of the large version. My overall impression is that the physicians of the ʿAḍudī hospital set out to produce a single integral pharmacopoeia on the basis of such copies and/or versions of Sābūr’s original as circulated among clinical specialists at the time, and that they further intended to update, shorten and restructure the pharmacological material contained in these ‘originals’ on empirical grounds and in consideration of their own practical needs. A relative measure of their success can be seen in the fact that it took another century before the ingenious Ibn at-Tilmīd̠ (d. 560/1165), head physician of that same institution, compiled an altogether new pharmacopoeia which came to dwarf not only the remnants of Sābūr ibn Sahl’s original dispensatory but also the hospital epitome, its finest and final interpretation—but that is a different story.

2. The Hospital Epitome a. The Arabic Manuscript The edition of the Arabic text containing the hospital epitome is based on the unique manuscript Munich Staatsbibliothek cod.arab. 808/2,29 fols. 2b,20–21b,ult.30—29 to 36 lines per page on an area of script measuring an average of 18.5 × 13.5 cm, written in small, thick, coarse, unvocalized, often undotted Nasḫ which towards the end becomes increasingly erratic and somewhat larger. Several marginal glosses from different hands. Between fols. 10 and 11 one or two leaves have gone missing prior to binding, such that the end of chapter 7 (safūfāt), the whole of chapter 8 (akḥ āl ), and the beginning of chapter 9 (marāhim) are now lost; at the bottom of fol. 21b a note in German alleging that the text is incomplete.31 Copyist

29

See Aumer Handschriften 355f.; cf. Ullmann Medizin 301 and GaS 3/244. The hospital epitome is the second item in this composite manuscript. The first item (808/1, fols. 1a–2b) represents a copy of ar-Rāzī’s (d. 313/925 or 323/935) treatise Burʾ [as-]sāʿa, cf. Ullmann Medizin 135 with note 3 and GaS 3/284f. no. 8; the third item (808/3, fols. 22a–34b), referred to as al-Qānūn aṣ-ṣaġīr, consists of extracts from Ibn Sīnā’s (d. 428/1037) encyclopaedia al-Qānūn fī ṭ-ṭibb, cf. Ullmann Medizin 152ff. 31 “Der Schluss dieses Textes fehlt!”. This note seems to be prompted by the observation that the beginning of the next item (808/3) is missing, but there is no other 30

8

introduction

unnamed. Date (fol. 34b): 8 Ramaḍān 741 [25 February 1341]. For a specimen see p. 19 below. The textual quality of this manuscript is very good. However, the copyist is not entirely at ease with the conventions of spelling and occasionally makes mistakes whose nature further seems to indicate that the text, or at least part of it, was taken down from dictation, e.g. ‫ ت‬instead of ‫)ﺿﻤﺎت( د‬, ‫ ث‬instead of ‫)ﺛﻠﺠﻢ( ش‬, ‫ ح‬instead of ‫)ﺣﺎون( ە‬, ‫ س‬instead of ‫)ﺧﺎﴎة( ص‬, ‫ ص‬instead of ‫)ﻣﺼﻠﻮﻗﺔ( س‬, ‫ ض‬instead of ‫) ﻛﺎﻏﺾ( ذ‬, ‫ ض‬instead of ‫)ﻣﻀﺤﻮن( ط‬, ‫ ض‬instead of ‫)ﺿﺮف( ظ‬, ‫ ق‬instead of ‫)ﯾﺬﻗﻰ( ك‬, and ‫ە‬ instead of ‫)وﻫﺰ( خ‬. Then, the copyist is not always confident as regards the terminology of his subject matter, especially when it comes to the graphical representation of loan-words or foreign proper names, e.g. ‫ اﺳـﺒﻮزدﯾﻮن‬instead of ‫