The Prolegomena to Sābūr Ibn Sahl's Small Dispensatory

Sābūr ibn Sahl (d. 255/869), a Nestorian physician and pharmacist at the Abbasid court in Baghdad, is well-known as the author of the earliest Arabic pharmaceutical handbook on record. This ‘dispensatory’ ( aqrābāḏīn ) originally circulated in three different versions (small—middle—large), but so fa...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Semitic studies
Main Author: Kahl, Oliver (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Oxford University Press [2012]
In: Journal of Semitic studies
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Volltext (doi)
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Summary:Sābūr ibn Sahl (d. 255/869), a Nestorian physician and pharmacist at the Abbasid court in Baghdad, is well-known as the author of the earliest Arabic pharmaceutical handbook on record. This ‘dispensatory’ ( aqrābāḏīn ) originally circulated in three different versions (small—middle—large), but so far only the small version has been published on the basis of an old, though fragmentary, codex from Berlin. Sābūr prefaced that version of his dispensatory with some highly instructive medico-pharmacological expositions in four short chapters, which are missing from the Berlin codex but retained by a younger, complementary manuscript from Tehran. Commencing with a general introduction into the subject and a brief description of the Tehran manuscript, this article provides a critical Arabic edition and an annotated English translation of these important prolegomena, which shed new light on the development of early Arabic pharmacology.
ISSN:1477-8556
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of Semitic studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1093/jss/fgr037