A treatise on the small-pox and measles / by Abú Becr Mohammed ibn Zacaríyá ar-Rází (commonly called Rhazes). Translated from the original Arabic by William Alexander Greenhill.

  • Rāzī, Abū Bakr Muḥammad ibn Zakarīyā, 865?-925?
Date:
1848
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A treatise on the small-pox and measles / by Abú Becr Mohammed ibn Zacaríyá ar-Rází (commonly called Rhazes). Translated from the original Arabic by William Alexander Greenhill. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    155/268 (page 143)
    or vigour, The modern scientific name, Acne, is generally stated to be a Greek word, aKvr]; but this is (to say the least,) extremely doubtful, as the word is not to be found in the new edition of H. Stephani Thesaur. Graec., and the only passage quoted by Du Cange^ where it occurs is that of Aetius referred to above, where it is manifestly a mere error of the press for aKgr}. And therefore it seems probable that this typographical error in the Aldine edition of Aetius is the sole origin of the term, which is now too commonly used to be ever altered. (Note E. p. 27.) That is, what is now commonly called the second book of the treatise “De Praesagitione ex Pulsibus.” Though Galen’s works entitled De Differentia Pulsuum,” ^‘De Dignoscendis Pulsibus,” ‘^De Causis Pulsuum,” and ‘‘De Praesagitione ex Pulsibus,” are now always quoted as four distinct treatises, Galen himself speaks of them as merely the four parts of one long work consisting of sixteen books,^ and so they appear to have been considered by the Arabic writers. This work also was translated into Arabic by Hobaish Al-'A’sam.^ The passage quoted by Rhazes appears to be the following:.ev be TM gera^v rovrwy ecpi ulgari’ Ka\ yap Kai tovto ai'ineTat Kara ras (pXeygovas, €(p' als Trvperrovai, rets re ciWas teat cjy rj ^Xoywais els TonruvToi’ agerpos ws KctraKaieiv re rd hepga kql Trades epya^eadat to Trpoaayopevogevov a r 6 p a k a. rfjs avTijs be ttios elai (pvaetos teat ot gera avaf^fiioaeios epirrjres, ovs eadiogevovs 'iTnroKparrjs Mvoga^ev. (ii. 1. tom. ix. p. 2/3.) As the above passage is not rendered quite literally by the Arabic translator, it is difficult to decide with certainty which is the word that he supposed to mean the S7nall-Pox, but upon the whole it seems most probable that it is epirps. This word occurs several times in different treatises of the Hippocratic Collection,''* but without any de¬ tailed description of the disease. Galen mentions it frequently and at length: it is, according to him, an eruption of small vesicles on the surface of the skin, filled with an acrid bilious secretion, .consisting of three species; the first containing a thick fluid, so acrid as to ulcerate ' Cassius Felix, Problem. Phys. et Med. § 33. p. 155. ed. Gr. (in Ideler’s Phys. et Med. Graeci Min. vol. i.), p. 760. ed. Lat. H. Steph. See also Julius Pollux, Onomast. iv. § 194. ^ Glossar. Med. et Infim. Graecit. 3 Be Arte, c. 37. tom. i. p. 410. * See Wenrich, Be Auct. Graec. Vers. &c. p. 251. 5 ProT'rhet. ii. tom. i. p. 204, 207 ; Be Liquid. Usu, tom. ii. p. 163; Be Morh. Popul. ii. 3 : iii. 3. p. 449, 487 : Aphor. v. tom. hi. p. 742.