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The manuscripts of the Cairo Genizah are a unique source for medieval medical history. In "Medical Prescriptions in the Cambridge Genizah Collections," Lev and Chipman offer an insight into the everyday practical medicine of medieval Egypt, which reflects medical practice in the Eastern Mediterranean as a whole, by analysing thirty selected prescriptions from the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection (Cambridge University Library). The prescriptions, which are in Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic, are transcribed and translated, with accompanying commentaries, photographs and glossaries. Introductory chapters discuss the theoretical background of the prescriptions and the practical medicine of the Cairo Genizah, while the conclusion considers their significance for the study of the medieval medical tradition.
About the author
Efraim Lev, Ph.D. (1999), Bar-Ilan, is a historian of medicine, an ethno-pharmacologist, and professor at the Department of Eretz Israel Studies at Haifa University, Israel. He has published monographs and many articles on the history of medicine in Israel and the Middle East.
Leigh Chipman, Ph.D. (2006), Hebrew University of Jerusalem, works on the social and intellectual history of medicine and science in the medieval Islamicate world. She is author of
The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamlūk Cairo (Brill, 2010) and several articles.
