Medical Terms in the Arabic Manuscript Kitāb al-mi’a fi al-ṭibb (“Hundred Books on the Skills of Medicine”) by Abu Sahl Isa b. Yahya al-Masihi (the 11th Century)

Abstract

The article is based on the manuscript “Hundred books on skills of Medicine” by Abu Sahl al-Masihi from the collection of the Oriental Department of the Gorky Library of St. Petersburg State University (Ms. O 667). The author of this written monument was regarded as the teacher of Ibn Sina (Avicenna). The text of Abu Sahl al-Masihi is an encyclopedic medical treatise of the XI century. It consists of one hundred “books”, each of which is a separate and independent chapter dedicated to a specific problem of theoretical or practical medicine. The article presents an analysis of Arabic medical terms found in the table of contents to the first book. They can be divided into four categories: borrowings from other languages, obsolete terms, terms found in the Qur’an, and terms with Arabic roots. The authors of the article cited fragments of Quranic texts as an illustration of the early origin of some terms for physiological states. The medical knowledge and traditions of the Arabs played a decisive role in the development of Arab-Muslim medieval medicine. Medical terms of the Arabs, introduced into scientific circulation in the early Middle Ages, are actively used in modern Arabic. The results of the lexical analysis of medical terminology from the first “book” of the treatise reflect the scale of the phenomenon called Arab-Muslim medieval medicine.