



REVIEW Year : 2014 | Volume : 6 | Issue : 1 | Page : 1-12

The role of Ibn Sina (Avicenna)'s medical poem in the transmission of medical knowledge to medieval Europe



Rabie El-Said Abdel-Halim

Emeritus Professor of Urology, Alfaisal University, Riyadh, KSA



Date of Submission 19-Nov-2013 Date of Acceptance 04-Dec-2013 Date of Web Publication 13-Feb-2014

Correspondence Address:

Rabie El-Said Abdel-Halim

90 Heathfield Road, Wavertree, Liverpool, Merseyside, L15 9HA, UK



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DOI: 10.4103/0974-7796.127010 PMID: 24669114

Abstract

The Medical Poem ("Al-Urjuzah Fi Al-Tibb") of Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980-1037), is the subject of this primary-source study evaluating its scientific value, poetics and pedagogical significance as well as assessing its role in the transmission of medical knowledge to Medieval Europe. In addition to one original manuscript and two modern editions, the English translation by Krueger was also studied. Ibn Sina's poem on medicine consisting of meticulously classified 1326 verses, can be considered as a poetic summary of his encyclopedic textbook: The Canon of Medicine; hence its popularity in the East then the West as a tool in the process of transmitting medical knowledge from master to student. Since first translated by Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187) in the middle of the 12 th century, the Latinized poem was frequently published in Medieval Europe either independently or combined with the Latinized Canon of Medicine or with the Articella; the famous collection of Greco-Roman and Latinized Arabian medical treatises in use in the universities of Salerno, Montpelier, Bologna and Paris up to the 17 th century. The study of the Krueger's English edition revealed few places where the full meanings of the original Arabic text were not conveyed. A list of those places is given together with the suggested corrections.

Keywords: Arabic medical poetry, history of medical education, history of medieval Islamic medicine, Latin translations of Islamic medicine, medieval medical poetry

How to cite this article:

Abdel-Halim RE. The role of Ibn Sina (Avicenna)'s medical poem in the transmission of medical knowledge to medieval Europe. Urol Ann 2014;6:1-12

How to cite this URL:

Abdel-Halim RE. The role of Ibn Sina (Avicenna)'s medical poem in the transmission of medical knowledge to medieval Europe. Urol Ann [serial online] 2014 [cited 2020 Sep 20];6:1-12. Available from: http://www.urologyannals.com/text.asp?2014/6/1/1/127010

Introduction

Materials and Methods

Figure 1: The first and last pages of an original manuscript of Ibn Sina's Medical Poem[1]



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A nineteenth-century Lucknow edition by Abdel-Majeed [2] reprinted again by Khan [3] in 1845. A 20 th -century Paris edition by Jahier and Noureddine including, with the original Arabic text, a French Translation. [4] The verses, in this edition, are sequentially numbered from the beginning of the poem to the end making a total of 1326 verses and providing the individual numbers for verses quoted in the current study. A twentieth century English translation by Krueger [5] based mainly on the above mentioned French translation and keeping the same sequence and the total number of verses. Unless otherwise mentioned, this translation is the source for all the quotations in this article. A recent Arabic edition by Al-Baba [6] in Aleppo in1984 based on three original manuscripts of the Urjuzah and published together with three other medical works of Ibn Sina. Like the Paris edition, the verses, here, are also sequentially numbered but with a total excess of 11 verses 8 of which are in the Preface section.

The poet, poem and poetics

The poem's content

Evidence of its influence both in the Medieval Islamic World and the Medieval Europe.

Figure 2: The verse in Ibn Sina's poem defining 'Medicine' in the original Arabic (top), as translated by Krueger (middle) and by the author (bottom)



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"Hifz Sihhatin" is preserving health and refers to preventive medicine.

"Buru Marad" is the treatment of an illness and refers to therapeutic medicine.

"Min Sababin" means due to a cause thus referring to the study of etiology, pathology, bacteriology and parasitology.

"Fi Jismin": this refers to the study of the normal body

"Anhu Arad": means: 'resulting from that illness are symptoms'. This refers to clinical medicine.

Figure 3: A page from an original manuscript of Al-Zahrawi's book Al-Tasrif showing the beginning of the first Maqala (treatise, chapter) starting with a quotation of Al-Razi's definition of medicine: "medicine is preserving health unto healthy individuals and returning it to the sick within the limits of human abilities". Source: Manuscript No. 4009, courtesy of Chester Beatty Library: Dublin



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Figure 4: A simplified schematic outline of the classification of the first 212 verses of the Ibn Sina's Medical poem dealing with the normal state of the body



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Figure 5: A simplified schematic outline of the classification of the section on deviations from the normal extending from verse No 213 until the verse 305



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Figure 6: A simplified schematic outline of the classification of part of the section on Symptoms of diseases



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Dietary regimen according to seasons

Care for the traveler in the sea

Care for the traveler on land

Sporting care

Care for babies at first while in utero (antenatal care)

Natal and post natal care

The choice of the wet-nurse

Care for toddlers

Care for the convalescent

Care for the elderly.

Figure 7: The title and first 3 verses of the section on 'Simple Drugs Which Warm and Do Not Purge' in the original manuscript and the 2 Lucknow editions



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Figure 8: A schematic table showing the distribution and total number of verses of Ibn Sina's medical poem



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Figure 9: Title page (a) and page 8 (b) of Cantica Avicennae in Use in Wittenberg School, published in 1562, courtesy of the Bayerische Staatbiblothek and the Munich DigitiZation Center of the Bavarian State Library



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Figure 10: Front page of a Latin edition of Ibn Sina's medical poem translated into verse by Johannes Faucher in the 16th century and published by Gilletis 1630. Original is from the Bavarian State Library. Courtesy of Google e-books



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Figure 12: The title page of the Medieval European Latin textbook: The Articella. The page on the right shows a list of the authors and titles of their enclosed works including the medical poem of Ibn Sina (Cantica Avicennae); published in 1519 by Jacobum Myt in Impressum Lugduni and contains the same material included in the 1515 edition; original from: Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine; courtesy of Internet Archive



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Figure 13: Title page from the first print edition (Venice, 1480) of the Regimen Sanitatis Salernitanum, with the commentary of Arnaldus de Villanova (the Catalan). Courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons



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Figure 15: Title page of Medical Rhymes Selections Ancient and Modern' by Hugo Erichsen published by J H Chambers and Co., Chicago in 1884; original from Yale University, Cushing Whitney Medical Library; courtesy of Internet Archive



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Figure 15: Title page of Medical Rhymes Selections Ancient and Modern' by Hugo Erichsen published by J H Chambers and Co., Chicago in 1884; original from Yale University, Cushing Whitney Medical Library; courtesy of Internet Archive



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References

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