Texts and documents. A medieval Arab medical certificate.

Among the Geniza writings preserved in Cambridge University Library's TaylorSchechter Collection is a medieval Arabic medical certificate which has not hitherto been published or studied. Class-marked as T-S NS 327.51, this document is the earliest medical certificate known to me and is of sufficient interest to merit publication. Since the condition to which the certificate relates is leprosy, I propose not only to publish the Arabic along with an English translation, but also to consider some of the relevant aspects of the medical history of leprosy. First, a word or two about the document under consideration. The certificate is written on paper measuring 11 -8cm x 104cm, and, as can be seen from the photograph, it has suffered the ravages of time (see the plate). In two places, in fact, parts of the document have, at some time, become detached from the main body of the certificate and for the moment appear to be lost. Be that as it may, enough of the text survives to enable us to identify the nature and the date of the document and to translate its essence. Doctors nowadays have a reputation for bad handwriting, but it would seem that it was ever thus, for the writing of our document at times verges on the illegible, and indeed, in the case of one or two words, illegibility precludes certain translation. It may be translated into English in the following manner: