| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM |  |
| OLOF EDLUND Antiquarian Bookseller STOCKHOLM | |
| $ 5000 |
| First edition in French of the section on surgery (3 vols.) of the Andalusian physician and surgeon al-Zahrawi's al-Tasrif li-man ajiza an al-talif a medical encyclopaedia in thirty treatises, translated, with notes by Lucien Leclerc. This edition was very influential in making al-Zahrawi's surgery better known to modern historians of science. The first edition in Arabic, with a translation into Latin, was edited by John Channing and appeared at Oxford 1778. An earlier Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona appeared at Venice 1497. The standard edition is Abulcasis on surgery and instruments. A definitive edition of the Arabix text, with English translation and commentary by M. S. Spink & G. L. Lewis, London, Wellcome Institute, 1973. "Al-Zahrawi's Tasrif, completed about A.D. 1000, was the result of almost fifty years of medical education and experience. In it he discussed not only medicine and surgery, but also midwifery, pharmaceutical and cosmetic preparations, materia medica, cookery and dietetics, weights and measures, technical terminology, medical chemistry, therapeutics, and psychotherapy. Al-Zahrawi attempted to separate medical practise from alchemy, theology, and philosophy, advocating specialization in the health professions: 'Too much branching and specializing in many fields before perfecting one of them causes frustration and mental fatigue'. He also called for upholding the high ethical standards of the healing art, the return to and reliance on nature, and recognition that 'time plays an important part in the treatment and cure of diseases'. Al-Zahrawi was the first to recommend surgical removal of a broken patella and the first to practise lithotomy on women. He introduced what is now known as the Walcher position in obstetrics and devised new obstetrical forceps. He gave original descriptions for manufacturing and using probes, surgical knives, scalpels, and hooks of various shapes and designs. He invented several types of true surgical scissors ending in recurved or ring extremities, as well as grasping forceps" ...."Al-Zahrawi's surgeryy was the most advanced in the Middle Ages until the thirteenth century. Although its influence in Arab lands has been limited (Ibn al-Quff in the thirteenth was an exception), his surgical and chemopharmaceutical writings were highly regarded in the West after they were translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona, Rogerius Frugardi, Rolandus Parmensis, Arnald of Villanova, and others. His emphasis on the importance of human anatomy and physiology generated special interest in their study by later doctors. He observed, for example, that the brain includes the three functions of the intellect: imagination, thought, and memory"(Sami Hamarneh). |
| * D.S.B., 14, p. 584-5. Cf. Garrison & Morton 5550. |