The Cilician Dioscorides’ Plant Materia Medica as Appeared in Ibn Al-Bitar, The Arab Herbalist of the 13th Century.

DESCRIPTION

8 vo. 180 pp. English, Latin & Arabic text, text edited by Mohammed Nazir Sankary, publishers’ original wrappers, index, Aleppo University Publications, Institute For The History of Arabic Science, Aleppo, 1992. Ibn al- Bitar is one of the greatest Arabian botanists. His book Al Gami’ Al Kabir is the most original among the Arabic materia medica texts of the mediaeval period. Arabic materia medica had a considerable impact on European herbal and antidotarium authors from the 12th to the 17th century. Constantine wrote nothing original; all his books are plagiarisms or skilfully disguised translations from the Arabic. The medicinal remedies reported by Dioscorides are thus of Islamic origin. The same may be said of the work of Celsus which was hardly noticed by the Greeks and overlooked in the Middle Ages (26). In the section on emollients (Vol. II), Celsus describes one of them as the invention of a certain Arab. and some of his recipes are based on Arabic materia medica with its tables of weights and measures (pound, Durham and dinarium or dinarii).