Catalogue of Arabic manuscripts on medicine and pharmacy at the British Library

S. K. HAMARNEH, Catalogue of Arabic manuscripts on medicine andpharmacy at the British Library, Cairo, Les Editions Universitaires d'Egypte, 1975, pp. I-XVI +pp. 1-276 +fig. 1-15 +pp. 1-16 (Arabic), $8.00. This catalogue is the result of short visits to London from 1962 to 1973, totalling about three months. In an introductory note (pp. v-xvi), Dr. Hamarneh gives a brief account of the provenance and successive acquisition of the Arabic collections of manuscripts housed in the British Library. He describes 333 identified works (pp. 1-246) and 47 unidentified books and fragments (pp. 247-257). A 'Selected bibliography' (pp. 258-267) is followed by a 'General index' (pp. 269-276), then photographic reproductions are given of fifteen manuscripts, and the catalogue ends with an introductory section in Arabic. The names of authors are given in a chronological order, followed by biographical accounts compiled from printed sources, then the transliterated Arabic titles (arranged in alphabetical order under each author) are provided with the shelfmarks of manuscripts. A description of the contents and purpose ofeach work is followed by thatof individualmanuscripts. Extensivereferences are given to Arabic and occidental bibliographical sources. The major part of this catalogue is a mere repetition of work which was previously done at the highest level of scholarship. Hamarneh is unjustified in his criticism (pp. xi-xii) of Ellis and Edwards' "descriptive list" which, as its title indicates, was not published as a catalogue. It would have been better for prospective users of Hamarneh's catalogue had he confined himselfonly to a detailed study of the hitherto uncatalogued manuscripts in the British Library. The Arabic opening and closing passages of works (the incipits and explicits of Western manuscripts) are not given. These would have been a good asset to the catalogue. Arabic printing in Cairo is usually very good and relatively inexpensive. Hippocrates' Aphorisms (MS Add. 6903) is described (p. 3, n. 2) as a "copy obtained at Patna, Bihar-India, by John Taylor." In fact it was "obtained at Patna by John Tytler, Assistant-Surgeon, Bengal Establishment, East-India Service." (See MS Add. 6903, fol. la; and Brit. Mus. Catal., H, p. 456.) John Tytler et al are editors of the Arabic text of Aphorisms (printed in Calcutta, Education Press, 1832). Hamarneh translates Galen's R al-buhrdn and 1T ayyam al-buhrdn (pp. 18-19) rather differently into On delirium and On the days of delirium, instead of On crisis and On critical days. Further, he renders Galen's On the art of physic into the usual form Ars medica (p. 20), but he also translates UIunayn-[Iubaysh's] Questions on medicine into Ars medica and Arsparva (pp. 3, 37). It would be interesting to know the source of information that Galen's On anatomical procedures (pp. 17-18) was included in the Summaria Alexandrinorum as the eighth book. This information is not substantiated by Arabic manuscripts of the Swmmaria, the eighth book ofwhichwasan "aggregate of treatises" originally written by Galen and assembled later by Alexandrian teachers in one work entitled On anatomy for students or Minor anatomy. Hamarneh (pp. 19-21) describes MS Add. 23407 representing the first eight items of the Summaria (which are described very accurately in the Brit. Mus. Catal., I, pp. 629-630) and mentions its eighth book On minor anatomy. Galen's On the method of healing was not the last of the sixteen books of the Summaria (cf. Hamarneh, p. 19). According to Arabic manuscripts and printed sources, On the method of