Medieval Recipes about Toothpastes by Abulcasis

Abstract

Abulcasis Al-Zahrāwī (c.936-c.1013) is a very important physician of Al-Andalus, besides an eminent surgeon, the first one of Medieval Islam. His main work, titled Kitāb al-Taṣrīf (Book of medical arrangement), contains in its 19th treatise, which deals with cosmetics and drugs for health and embellishment of body, interesting recipes of a great value to the diverse scientific fields, such as the pharmacology, dentistry, dermatology, cosmetics and aesthetic medicine. Reading this handbook allows to reconstruct the aesthetic canons of Arab society in the late 10th and early 11th centuries, as well as indicates the interest showed by this society in hygiene, beauty, ornament and perfume, and how these factors are closely connected to body health. This article is an approach to the study of the treatise above mentioned, and includes the translation from Arabic to English of some recipes about toothpastes, according to the 5774th Arab manuscript of the National Library at Paris. The pages translated in this article exemplify the high level achieved by Arab scientific knowledge in the Middle Ages, and certify the importance of Abulcasis Al-Zahrāwī in the history of Islamic science. His work Kitāb al-Taṣrīf is in a high-ranking place within surgery, medicine and pharmacology of Al-Andalus. For the influence exercised in Europe until the early 17th century, among other reasons, Abulcasis has a very relevant position in the history of both universal culture and science.