Rare and little known to scholarship: a medical work by one of the greatest physicians in Muslim history, copied quite early. Abu Bakr Al-Razi (ca. 864-925) is known by the name of Rhazes in the Latin tradition; few if any can claim his scope of influence on medical thought in the Christian and Muslim worlds alike.
While the manuscript of al-Razis "Kitab al-Mansuri" ("The Book of Medicine for Al-Mansur") was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona around 1180 and disseminated to the West, the "Taqasim al-ilal", sometimes also known as "Taqsim wa al-Tashjir" ("Dividing and Diagramming"), remains almost unknown among al-Razis prolific productions, the present example being one of very few surviving manuscripts. A critical edition was not published until 1992, by the University of Aleppo.
Rather than following the traditional method of treating body parts in order in an anatomical "head to toe" approach, the "Taqasim al-ilal" details a series of case studies of each ailment in 31 themed chapters. Each chapter begins with the general and then narrows its focus for very careful and deliberate diagnosis. The first chapter, for example, is titled simply "On headaches," but gives an immediate distinction between a headache and migraine, after which symptomatology is further distinguished: there is a headache affecting the auricular region (suda maa waj al-udhn), the eye (al-ayn), or a headache-causing cough (suda maa al-sual).
In the present manuscript, the "Taqasim" is followed by a copy of al-Razis "Aqrabadin", itself the source of Masawaihs "Antidotarium". The final section of the treatise deals specifically with surgical procedures, such as the cauterization of wounds or the setting of dislocated or fractured bones.
An highly important and very early copy from one of the great names in the history of science, and one which would benefit greatly from the scholarly attention it has lacked for centuries.
In two volumes, originally bound as one, complete in spite of one loose quire. Some paper repair, generally marginal. Well preserved. GAL I, 223, no. 9.4, 9.5; Taqasim al-ilal. Aleppo, Mahad al-Turat al-Ilmi al-Arabi, 1992.