Ibn al-Baytâr: Kitâb al-Tibb (Arabic pharmacopoeia with notes by P. Forsskål).
Department of Oriental and Judaica Collections, Cod. Arab. CXIV 4º. 118 fols.

Fol. 2v

Ibn al-Baytâr died in 1248. This manuscript is not dated but it was copied much later.
The contents of the manuscript are pharmacological. It is one of the manuscripts acquired by the participants in the Arabian Journey, i.e. the Danish expedition to Egypt and Yemen 1761-1767 undertaken, a.o., by Carsten Niebuhr. It was bought in Cairo in 1761 by Peter Forsskål, the botanist of the expedition. He supplied the text with his own notes adding to each plant its colloquial Egyptian name. He further added a Linnean botanical description to those medical plants that he was able to identify.
The manuscript is of particular interest to specialists in traditional medicine, Egyptian-Arabic lexicography, and history of science.

20.8 x 15.8 cm.

See the entire manuscript on the website of the Department of Oriental and Judaica Collections Kitāb al-Tibb (Book on Medicine): Ascribed to Ibn al-Baytâr.

© Det Kongelige Bibliotek 2003