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Abraham of Tortosa (Abraham ben Shem-Tob)

إبراهيم الطرطوشيّ

Notable figure 13th century · Source: Abraham ben Shem-Ṭob, Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), by Moïse Schwab · Second source: Simó de Gènova, MedCat: Corpus Medicorum Catalanorum (Lluís Cifuentes)

Field: Translation

Affiliation

With Simon of Genoa, put al-Zahrawi and Ibn Wafid into Latin

Biography

A thirteenth-century Jewish medical writer, whose father, Shem-Tob ben Isaac of Tortosa, practised medicine at Marseilles, where he was probably born. With Simon of Genoa he translated from Arabic into Latin book twenty-eight of al-Zahrawi's Tasrif, on preparing simple medicines, as the Liber Servitoris (printed 1471), and a book on simple medicines that they ascribed to Serapion, in fact by Ibn Wafid (printed 1473). The edition names Abraham as interpreter, and the Jewish Encyclopedia holds that he was the real translator of the Liber Servitoris and that Simon merely added his name.