Arabic in Cards Arabic in the Sciences

Arabic in the Sciences

Provisions for the Traveller

زاد المسافر وقوت الحاضر

A handbook of diseases and their cures, from head to toe, written by Ibn al-Jazzar in Kairouan, Tunisia. Constantine the African claimed it as his own when he put it into Latin, and it stayed in Europe's medical curriculum for about 150 years; then in 1515 it was printed at Lyon, France, under the name of the author's teacher, Isaac Israeli – so in Latin it never bore its author's name.

Author
Ibn al-Jazzar of Kairouan (d. c. 979)
Field
Medicine
Arabic title
زاد المسافر وقوت الحاضر
Latin title
Viaticum (Viaticum peregrinantis); Lyon 1515: Viaticum Ysaac quod Constantinus sibi attribuit

Europe knew it under a name not its author's.

Title page of Isaac Israeli's works, Lyon 1515: Isaac, al-Majusi ("Haly Abbas") and Constantine at one table; the contents list the "Viaticum of Isaac, which Constantine claimed as his own"
Title page of Isaac Israeli's works, Lyon 1515: Isaac, al-Majusi ("Haly Abbas") and Constantine at one table; the contents list the "Viaticum of Isaac, which Constantine claimed as his own"
Yale, Cushing/Whitney Medical Library · Internet Archive · Public domain

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