Book contents
- Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
- Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note to the Reader
- Medieval Mediterranean Pharmacology
- Part I Transmission of Pharmacological Knowledge
- Chapter 1 Ibn al-Tilmīdh’s Book on Simple Drugs
- Chapter 2 Drugs, Provenance, and Efficacy in Early Medieval Latin Medical Recipes
- Chapter 3 De sexaginta animalibus
- Chapter 4 Arabic Terms in Byzantine Materia Medica
- Chapter 5 The Theriac of Medieval al-Shām
- Chapter 6 ‘Already Verified’
- Part II The Borders of Pharmacology
- Index
- References
Chapter 4 - Arabic Terms in Byzantine Materia Medica
Oral and Textual Transmission
from Part I - Transmission of Pharmacological Knowledge
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 October 2023
- Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
- Drugs in the Medieval Mediterranean
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Note to the Reader
- Medieval Mediterranean Pharmacology
- Part I Transmission of Pharmacological Knowledge
- Chapter 1 Ibn al-Tilmīdh’s Book on Simple Drugs
- Chapter 2 Drugs, Provenance, and Efficacy in Early Medieval Latin Medical Recipes
- Chapter 3 De sexaginta animalibus
- Chapter 4 Arabic Terms in Byzantine Materia Medica
- Chapter 5 The Theriac of Medieval al-Shām
- Chapter 6 ‘Already Verified’
- Part II The Borders of Pharmacology
- Index
- References
Summary
This chapter argues that our understanding of Byzantine pharmacological practice is obscured by the considerably late date of the pertinent surviving manuscripts. It explains the introduction of Arabic terminology in Byzantine pharmacological practice as one among many examples of introducing and eventually domesticating foreign terms since antiquity, including the absorption of Greek terms in medieval Arabic pharmacology. In every case, the transmission of pharmacological knowledge occurred through both written and oral channels that were expressed in more than one language. This chapter also discusses a glossary of Arabic botanical terms that appears in several Byzantine medical manuscripts. It shows that the glossary was collected more than once from the same widely circulating Greek text, the Byzantine translation of the famous medical treatise by Ibn al-Jazzār, known in Greek as the Ephodia. It concludes by arguing that, instead of contrasting ancient Greek, Arabic, and Byzantine science, it is more productive to investigate all three in order to understand their shared goals, methods of research, and ways of dissemination.
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- Drugs in the Medieval MediterraneanTransmission and Circulation of Pharmacological Knowledge, pp. 130 - 183Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2023