Volume 1

The book of the ten treatises on the eye, ascribed to Hunain ibn Is-hâq (809-877 A. D.) : the earliest existing systematic text-book of ophthalmology / the Arabic text edited from the only two known manuscripts, with an English translation and glossary, by Max Meyerhof.

  • Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq al-ʻIbādī, 809?-873.
Date:
1928
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The book of the ten treatises on the eye, ascribed to Hunain ibn Is-hâq (809-877 A. D.) : the earliest existing systematic text-book of ophthalmology / the Arabic text edited from the only two known manuscripts, with an English translation and glossary, by Max Meyerhof. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    41/528 (page 35)
    Bey (now Pasha), an Egyptian notable, possessed in his library in Lower Egypt a collection of ophthalmological manuscripts. Ahmad Bey was kind enough to send his valuable MS. to the Khedivial (now National) Library in Cairo, where I had the unique MSS. copied, which are enu¬ merated above as Nos. I to VII and XII, from it. I published among them, with the help of Dr. Priifer, the papers men¬ tioned in the notes pp. X—XI. The most valuable of these new discoveries was certainly an original MS. of Hunain’s Ten Treatises bearing the long title The Book of Hunain ihn Ishaq on the Structure of the Eye, its Diseases and their Treatment according to the Conception of Hippo¬ crates and Galen, in ten Treatises. Unhappily, the end of the fifth, the whole sixth, and the beginning of the seventh treatise were missing. Moreover the modern copyist did his work in a somewhat negligent manner, and so we decided to publish only a translation of the first three of these Treatises, comprising the anatomy and physiology of the eye (J), with three of the five anatomical diagrams which exist in this then unique MS. Then came the Great War which brought on me the loss of a part of my library and a nine years separation from Egypt. After my return, in 1923, I found that Taimur Pasha had transferred his greatly enlarged library to Cairo where he had erected a fine building for it annexed to his villa in a suburb of the town. In this library, the best kept and best arranged in the near East, the learned proprietor lives the life of a scholar, working incessantly at scientific and literary matters, publishing valuable contributions out of the rich treasure of his thou¬ sands of Arabic manuscripts, some of which are unique. Taimur Pasha, with his usual liberality, allowed me to replace my lost copies of his MS. by new ones, photographs this time. A short time later, in 1925, I obtained the cata¬ logue published by Prof. I. Krachkovsky in Leningrad (1) M. Meyerhof and C. Pruefer, Die, Augenatomie des Hunain b. Ishaq. Archiv f. Geschichte der Medizin, vol. IV, 1910, p. 163-190, and. M. Meyerhof and C. Pruefer, Die Lehre vom Sehen bei Hunain b> Ishaq. Ibid. vol. VI, 1912, p. 21-33. (oV)