Pg 81
Contributions From
The Museum of History and Technology
Paper 22
Drawings and Pharmacy in al-Zahrāwī’s
10th-Century Surgical Treatise
Sami Hamarneh
82
Figure 1.—Reproduction of a page from original Arabicmanuscript indexed as "Cod. N.F. 476A" at OesterreichischeNationalbibliothek in Vienna. Courtesy OesterreichischeNationalbibliothek.
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Drawings and Pharmacy in al-Zahrāwī’s
10th-Century Surgical Treatise
by Sami Hamarneh
Probably the earliest independent work in Arabic Spain to embracethe whole of medical knowledge of the time is the encyclopedic al-Tasrīf,written in the late 10th century by Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī,also known as Abulcasis. Consisting of 30 treatises, it isthe only known work of al-Zahrāwī and it brought him high prestigein the western world.
Here we are concerned only with his last treatise, on surgery.With its many drawings of surgical instruments, intended for theinstruction of apprentices, its descriptions of formulas and medicinalpreparations, and its lucid observations on surgical procedures, thistreatise is perhaps the oldest of its kind.
Scholars today have available a translation of the text and reproductionsof the drawings, but many of the latter are greatly modifiedfrom the originals.
This study reproduces examples of al-Zahrāwī’s original illustrations,compares some with early drawings based on them, and commentson passages in the treatise of interest to students of pharmacyand medical therapy.
The Author: Sami Hamarneh undertook this research into thehistory of medicine in connection with his duties as associate curatorof medical sciences in the United States National Museum, SmithsonianInstitution.
HE INTRODUCTION OF THE WRITINGSof Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbāsal-Zahrāwī—better known as Abulcasis (d.ca. 1013)—to Western Europe was through theLatin translation of his surgical treatise (maqālah)by Gerard of Cremona (d. 1187).1 The response tothis treatise, thereafter, was much greater than theattention paid to the surgery of any of the threerenowned physicians of the Eastern Caliphate: al-Rāzī(Latin, Rhazes, d. ca. 925), the greatest clinicianin Arabic medicine; al-Majūsī (Haly Abbās, d. 994),the author of the encyclopedic medical work, al-Malakī;284and Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna, 980-1037), theauthor of the famous al-Qānūn fī al-Ṭibb, a codificationof the whole of medical knowledge. Because of thewidespread dissemination of this Latin version inmedieval Europe beginning with the latter part ofthe 12th century, al-Zahrāwī