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

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; Latin translations of Islamic medicine; history of medical education; history of medieval Islamic medicine; medieval medical poetry.

Figure 1

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

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)

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

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

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

Figure 6

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

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

Figure 8

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

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

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

Figure 11

The title page of a Latin Edition of Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine together with two of his other works; Cardiac Medicines and the Medical Poem (the Cantica Avicennae) published in 1562. The page on the right is page 1082; the beginning of the Cantica section. Courtesy of Google e-books

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

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

Figure 14

Title page of The Art of Preserving Health: A Poem by John Armstrong (in four books: Air, diet, exercise and passions), published by B. Franklin (London and Philadelphia) in 1745; original from US National Library of Medicine; courtesy of Internet Archive

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