Medical Prescriptions in the Cambridge Genizah Collections

Medical Prescriptions in the Cambridge Genizah Collections
Author: Efraim Lev
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 195
Release: 2012-09-14
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9004235639

The manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah are a unique source for medieval medical history. In Medical Prescriptions in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, Lev and Chipman offer an insight into the everyday practical medicine of medieval Egypt, which reflects medical practice in the Eastern Mediterranean as a whole, by analysing thirty selected prescriptions from the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection (Cambridge University Library). The prescriptions, which are in Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic, are transcribed and translated, with accompanying commentaries, photographs and glossaries. Introductory chapters discuss the theoretical background of the prescriptions and the practical medicine of the Cairo Genizah, while the conclusion considers their significance for the study of the medieval medical tradition.

ReOrienting Histories of Medicine

ReOrienting Histories of Medicine
Author: Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-01-28
Genre: History
ISBN: 1472507185

It is rarely appreciated how much of the history of Eurasian medicine in the premodern period hinges on cross-cultural interactions and knowledge transmissions. Using manuscripts found in key Eurasian nodes of the medieval world – Dunhuang, Kucha, the Cairo Genizah and Tabriz – the book analyses a number of case-studies of Eurasian medical encounters, giving a voice to places, languages, people and narratives which were once prominent but have gone silent. This is an important book for those interested in the history of medicine and the transmissions of knowledge that have taken place over the course of global history.

Medicine in the Talmud

Medicine in the Talmud
Author: Jason Sion Mokhtarian
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 259
Release: 2022-07-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520384040

Despite the Talmud being the richest repository of medical remedies in ancient Judaism, this important strain of Jewish thought has been largely ignored—even as the study of ancient medicine has exploded in recent years. In a comprehensive study of this topic, Jason Sion Mokhtarian recuperates this obscure genre of Talmudic text, which has been marginalized in the Jewish tradition since the Middle Ages, to reveal the unexpected depth of the rabbis’ medical knowledge. Medicine in the Talmud argues that these therapies represent a form of rabbinic scientific rationality that relied on human observation and the use of nature while downplaying the role of God and the Torah in health and illness. Drawing from a wide range of both Jewish and Sasanian sources—from the Bible, the Talmud, and Maimonides to texts written in Akkadian, Syriac, and Mandaic, as well as the incantation bowls—Mokhtarian offers rare insight into how the rabbis of late antique Babylonia adapted the medical knowledge of their time to address the needs of their community. In the process, he narrates an untold chapter in the history of ancient medicine.

Collecting Recipes

Collecting Recipes
Author: Lennart Lehmhaus
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2017-09-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1501502530

With a clear comparative approach, this volume brings together for the first time contributions that cover different periods of the history of ancient pharmacology, from Greek, Byzantine, and Syriac medicine to the Rabbinic-Talmudic medical discourses. This collection opens up new synchronic and diachronic perspectives in the study of the ancient traditions of recipe-books and medical collections. Besides the highly influential Galenic tradition, the contributions will focus on less studied Byzantine and Syriac sources as well as on the Talmudic tradition, which has never been systematically investigated in relation to medicine. This inquiry will highlight the overwhelming mass of information about drugs and remedies, which accumulated over the centuries and was disseminated in a variety of texts belonging to distinct cultural milieus. Through a close analysis of some relevant case studies, this volume will trace some paths of this transmission and transformation of pharmacological knowledge across cultural and linguistic boundaries, by pointing to the variety of disciplines and areas of expertise involved in the process.

From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit

From the Battlefield of Books: Essays Celebrating 50 Years of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit
Author:
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 319
Release: 2024-10-17
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 900471233X

This collection of essays celebrates 50 years since the founding of the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Research Unit at Cambridge University Library. Three generations of scholars contributed their research and memories from their time at the GRU, stretching back to 1974. Their work comprises 18 articles on medieval Jewish History, Hebrew and Arabic manuscripts, archival history, and the story of the Cairo Genizah collections at the University of Cambridge. Together, they demonstrate the achievements of GRU alumni in advancing the field of Genizah Studies for more than five decades.

Herbal Medicine in Yemen

Herbal Medicine in Yemen
Author: Ingrid Hehmeyer
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 268
Release: 2012-08-27
Genre: History
ISBN: 9004221506

Traditional medicine in Yemen is largely plant-based. Fourteen scholars represent both humanities and natural sciences in studying herbal medicines and their multifaceted applications within traditional Yemeni society. Approaches are based on textual analysis, empirical research and laboratory experiment.

Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies

Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies
Author: Sonja Brentjes
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 876
Release: 2023-01-24
Genre: History
ISBN: 1351692690

The Routledge Handbook on the Sciences in Islamicate Societies provides a comprehensive survey on science in the Islamic world from the 8th to the 19th century. Across six sections, a group of subject experts discuss and analyze scientific practices across a wide range of Islamicate societies. The authors take into consideration several contexts in which science was practiced, ranging from intellectual traditions and persuasions to institutions, such as courts, schools, hospitals, and observatories, to the materiality of scientific practices, including the arts and craftsmanship. Chapters also devote attention to scientific practices of minority communities in Muslim majority societies, and Muslim minority groups in societies outside the Islamicate world, thereby allowing readers to better understand the opportunities and constraints of scientific practices under varying local conditions. Through replacing Islam with Islamicate societies, the book opens up ways to explain similarities and differences between diverse societies ruled by Muslim dynasties. This handbook will be an invaluable resource for both established academics and students looking for an introduction to the field. It will appeal to those involved in the study of the history of science, the history of ideas, intellectual history, social or cultural history, Islamic studies, Middle East and African studies including history, and studies of Muslim communities in Europe and South and East Asia.

Studies in Coptic Culture

Studies in Coptic Culture
Author: Mariam Ayad
Publisher: American University in Cairo Press
Total Pages: 199
Release: 2016-05-02
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1617977659

Coptic contributions to the formative theological debates of Christianity have long been recognized. Less well known are other, equally valuable, Coptic contributions to the transmission and preservation of technical and scientific knowledge, and a full understanding of how Egypt's Copts survived and interacted with the country's majority population over the centuries. Studies in Coptic Culture attempts to examine these issues from divergent perspectives. Through the careful examination of select case studies that range in date from the earliest phases of Coptic culture to the present day, twelve international scholars address issues of cultural transmission, cross-cultural perception, representation, and inter-faith interaction. Their approaches are as varied as their individual disciplines, covering literary criticism, textual studies, and comparative literature as well as art historical, archaeo-botanical, and historical research methods. The divergent perspectives and methods presented in this volume will provide a fuller picture of what it meant to be Coptic in centuries past and prompt further research and scholarship into these subjects.

The Fate of the Jews in the Early Islamic Near East

The Fate of the Jews in the Early Islamic Near East
Author: Phillip Lieberman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2022-06-23
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1009079190

In this book, Phillip Lieberman revisits one of the foundational narratives of medieval Jewish history—that the rise of Islam led the Jews of Babylonia, the largest Jewish community prior to the rise of Islam, to abandon a livelihood based on agriculture and move into urban crafts and long-distance trade. Here, he presents an alternative account that reveals the complexity of interfaith relations in early Islam. Using Jewish and Islamic chronicles, legal materials, and the rich documentary evidence of the Cairo Geniza, Lieberman demonstrates that Jews initially remained on the rural periphery after the Islamic conquest of Iraq. Gradually, they assimilated to an emerging Islamicate identity as the new religion took shape, sapping towns and villages of their strength. Simultaneously, a small, elite group of merchants and communal leaders migrated westward. Lieberman here explores their formative influence on the Jewish communities of the southern Mediterranean that flourished under Islamic conquest.