Volume 1

The abridged version of "The book of simple drugs" of Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghâfiqî / by Gregorius Abu'l-Farag (Barhebraeus) Ed. from the only two known manuscripts with an English Translation, commentary and indices, by M. Meyerhof, G.P. Sobhy.

Abū Ja'far Ahmad ibn Muhammad, al-Ghāfikī, -1165.

Date:: 1932-1940

Credit: The abridged version of "The book of simple drugs" of Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Ghâfiqî / by Gregorius Abu'l-Farag (Barhebraeus) Ed. from the only two known manuscripts with an English Translation, commentary and indices, by M. Meyerhof, G.P. Sobhy. Source: Wellcome Collection.

83/248 page 75

$bark of the Egyptian thorn1, Its colour is like that of the trunk of the myrtle. In its form it resembles a hand and is of stronger astringency than the myrtle itself. Ar~R4zi in the “Book of the Specific Properties”: When you take a ring of fresh myrtle wood and put it on the little finger of a man who is suffering from a swelling in his groin it soothes the pain. COMMENTARY. It is Myrtus communis L. The Myrtidanon is probably an excrescence of the bark. IB who generally copies al-Qhafiqi s text carefully omits the superstitious belief recorded by ar-Razi in his book of the Specific Properties. This book is lost and the authorship of ar-Razi may be doubtful, although it is recorded in al-Birunis catalogue of ar-Razi’s works2. Ar-Razi was, as far as we know, not at all inclined to superstition although he cultivated, in his early years, alchemy and astrology. Synonyms : Or.: yvooivy] (myrsitie)\ Lat.: myrtus (Pliny); Turk. : tnersin ; Pers.: tndrd ( Abu Mansur, Schlimmer) ; Eng.: myrtle; Fr.: myrte; Germ.: Myrthe. Idrisi ( p. 10-11 ), whose paragraph on as is much 1. The word bunk is missing from most of the Arabic dictionaries. According to the Persian dictionaries (Vullers and Steingass) it is the bark of the Acacia nilotica The same sense is found in Issa p. 2, no. 12. See below no. 1 19. 2. Julius Ruska, Al-Biruni als Quelle fur das Leben und die Schriften al-RazPs, In Isis V (1922) p. 48 no. 183.$