Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 216

The writings of learned physicians, such
as al-Rāzī, are not entirely devoid of
sympathetic magic, for occasional refer-
ences are found to sympathetic remedies
involving magical principles. Throughout
the society, in varying degrees, there was
room for popular explanations and cures
alongside the more learned approaches.
In the 5th/11th century, Arabic medi-
cal theories and practices began to filter
into Europe. One of the earliest to be
translated was an abbreviated version of
unayn b. Isā's K. al-Masāil fi 'l-ibb ,
known in Latin as the Isagoge , which was
fundamental in establishing the basic con-
ceptual framework of medicine in Europe.
The major writings of al-Ma ¡ ūsī (Haly
Abbas), al-Rāzī (Rhazes), and Ibn Sīnā
(Avicenna) were all translated into Latin
by the mid-7th/13th century. The name
Mesue was associated with several influ-
ential Latin treatises, only some of which
were actually written by Ibn Māsawayh.
The writings of Isā b. Sulaymān
al-Isrāīlī and Ibn al- ⁄ azzār had consid-
erable circulation through Latin versions,
as did the K. al-Kulliyyāt ( Colliget ) of Ibn
Ru ª d (Averroes). The surgical chapter
by Zahrāwī (Abulcasis) enjoyed great
popularity in Europe, as did the Tawīm
al-ia of Ibn Bulān, known as Tacuim or
Tacuinum sanitatis . With only a few excep-
tions, no Islamic medical writers who lived
after Ibn Bulān are represented by Latin
translations of their writings. A subject of
debate is whether a Latin translation of
Ibn al-Nafīs's description of the pulmo-
nary circulation was available in the 16th
century.
In the 16th century, Europeans again
became interested in medical practices in
the Islamic world. For example, Leonhard
Rauwolf travelled in Syria, Iraq, and Pal-
estine from 1573 to 1575 to collect plant
specimens and record customs. Before
travelling there, he had read Latin trans-

lations of Avicenna, Rhazes and Averroes.
In the next century, Joseph Labrosse (Fr.
Angelus of St Joseph) went to Rome in
1662 to study Arabic for two years and
then travelled to Ifahān to study Persian,
where he used medicine as a means of
propagating Christianity. Upon return to
France he published in 1681 the Pharma-
copoea persica which consisted of a Latin
translation of the ibb-i ª ifāī by Mu ‚ zaffar
b. Muammad usaynī al- · ifāī (d. 974/
1556) with comments by Labrosse. In the
18th century, two Latin translations of
al-Rāzī's treatise on small-pox and mea-
sles were made at a time when there was
much interest in inoculation or variola-
tion for smallpox following the descrip-
tion around 1720 of the procedure in
Turkey by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu,
wife of the Ambassador Extraordinary
to the Ottoman court. Pharmacopoeias
in European vernacular languages con-
tinued to show the influence of Islamic
pharmacology until the beginning of the
19th century.

2. Medical exchanges
between China and the
Islamic world
It has been often assumed that the bat-
tle near Talas in July 751, where Western
Turks and Arabs destroyed the Chinese
army, marks the end of direct Chinese
influence in Central and Western Asia,
but this assumption must be revised.
The two main channels of contact
between the Chinese and the Muslim
peoples during the Middle Ages were the
continental Silk Road leading westwards
from north-west China. The other one,
the “Oceanic Silk Road”, connected the
south-west coast of China with India and
Persia. This latter route especially served
the exchange of herbal drugs and medi-
cal knowledge from both sides. This is evi-
denced, inasmuch as China is concerned,