The importance of the Cairo Genizah for the history of medicine.

AMONG THE hoard of manuscripts that found their way at the end of the last century from the depository ("genizah") ofan ancient Cairo Synagogue to different libraries of the West, many hundreds of medical writings are to be found. The largest collection of these manuscripts, which range from tiny fragments to complete works, is preserved in the Cambridge University Library. The majority of these, written on parchment or paper, date from the twelfth century and, although of considerable interest for the history of medicine, have received relatively little attention. many more are to be found dispersed throughout the entire collection. A large proportion of the texts are written in Judaeo-Arabic, that is Arabic written in Hebrew characters for the use ofJewish readers, although texts, some of which are illuminated, in Arabic, Hebrew, and even Judaeo-Spanish, also abound. The multifarious contents of these manuscripts testify to the great interest which the Jews of the Middle Ages cultivated in medicine. This is in fact only to be expected since in the Muslim countries of the Near East, Jews were often employed as physicians, some attaining to positions of high eminence.' The items most frequently found in the collection are the Arabic and Hebrew translations ofGreek medical writings, the most outstanding ofwhich are Hippocrates and Galen, as well as the classical works of the Arabs, such as Ali at-Tabari's Garden Of wisdom, Avicenna's Quanun, and treatises of Averroes and Rhazes. Besides these, scores of medical treatises by little-known authors have been preserved, ranging from dissertations on anatomy to treatises on optics, including the earliest medical works written in Hebrew. In addition there is a host of secondary material with a range of interest unequalled by any other collection of medical writings. It includes medical responsa, technical and herbal dictionaries in diverse languages, pharmacopoeias, popular recipes, and detailed prescriptions. The importance of all the above-mentioned manuscripts for the establishment of scientific editions cannot be overstressed for in many cases they represent very early versions of important texts, some of which are even autographs.2 On the other hand some of the manuscripts constitute the only surviving versions of medical works. Consequently they are of prime importance for the history of medieval medicine.