Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 215

tions from other treatises, including some
otherwise lost today, such as a treatise
on antidotes by the Egyptian physician
al-Tamīmī (d. 370/980) and an illustrated
herbal by the Syrian Ra ª īd Dīn Manūr
b. al-Sūrī (d. 641/1243).
Other topics were sometimes the sub-
jects of monographs, but they did not
generate a large specialist literature. Such
topics included anatomy, colic, haemor-
rhoids, skin diseases, forgetfulness, head-
aches, melancholia, fevers, bloodletting,
embryology, and care of children. In the-
case of surgery, Ibn al-uff 's book on it
was not as influential as the surgical chap-
ter from the encyclopaedia by Zahrāwī,
which was illustrated with drawings of
instrumentsand often circulated indepen-
dently from the encyclopaedia. Other
topics, such as leprosy and malaria were
discussed in encyclopaedias and have
interested modern scholars, but were not
themselves the subjects of monographs.
In certain regions the functioning of
medical practioners was overseen by a
raīs al-aibbā and/or a mutasib. Though
little is known about the actual duties of
the former, a number of manuals were
written as guides for the latter. Prior to
the 6th/12th century, the manuals only
briefly mentioned the medical profession,
and then mostly in relation to drugs,
weights, and measures. Al- · ayzarī (d.
589/1193), a physician working in Aleppo,
wrote a manual requiring that the Hippo-
cratic oath be administered to physicians,
oculists examined for their knowledge of
unayn b. Isā's K. al-A ª r maālāt fi
'l-ayn , bonesetters tested with the Ara-
bic version of Paul of Aegina's surgical
chapter, and surgeons required to know
a particular book by Galen. Later manu-
als repeated these requirements, but there
is little evidence as to what extent such
examinations were actually conducted. It
has also been asserted that a mediaeval

Islamic physician was granted a license
( i ¡ āza ) following the completion of his
education. There is, however, no evidence
for a uniform, standardised, or controlled
system of medical education, though
there are preserved today a number of
signed statements at the end of treatises
that a student has read and understood a
given text in the presence of the author or
established physician. Such certifications
are not equivalent to licensing a physician
upon completion of an approved period
of training, nor is the term i ¡ āza found in
such documents.
Magical and folkloric practices, as well
as astrological medicine, also formed part
of the medical pluralism. One of the most
obvious uses of charms and incantations
was to protect against epidemics, whose
occurrences were devastating, unpredict-
able and little understood, but they were
also used to protect against every sort
of disease and misfortune as well as the
evil eye. Certain verses of the urān
were considered especially beneficial, and
magical alphabets and other sigla were
combined to form amulets, which (after
the 6th/12th century) might include
magic squares. That such practices were
not the sole domain of the poor is evi-
dent in the magic-medicinal bowls made
for Ayyūbid and Mamlūk rulers. Large
numbers of magic-medicinal bowls are
preserved today, engraved with magical
symbols and urānic verses. According
to inscriptions on the early specimens,
they were thought useful for a variety of
ailments, including stomach complaints,
headache, nosebleeds, scorpion stings,
bites of snakes and mad dogs, and would
assist in childbirth. Curiously, neither the
magic-medicinal bowls nor the talismanic
shirts (of which a considerable number of
afawid, Ottoman and Mu ∞ al examples
are recorded) are mentioned in the written
literature that has been so far examined.