Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 221

work of ⁄ ālīnūs still read in Greek cen-
tres of learning during the 7th, 8th and
9th centuries A.D., and thus knew a num-
ber of medical and philosophical works of
⁄ ālīnūs which disappeared in the late
Byzantine period.
There can be no doubt—although
details have still to be ascertained and
interpreted in monographs—that Galen's
medical works in their entirety, his meth-
ods and his results, were fully digested and
appreciated by all the later Arabic physi-
cians and became an integral part of their
medical learning, in their original form as
well as in summaries, commentaries and
new works based on them. This by no
means applies only to such outstanding
physicians as Muammad b. Zakariya
al-Rāzi or Ibn Sīnā but to many others
as well. A comparison between ⁄ ālīnūs
and Ibn Sīnā's ānūn fi 'l-ibb would yield
very interesting results indeed. ⁄ ālīnūs
deserves a major chapter in any future
history of Arabic medicine down to the
first half of the 20th century. The Galen
studies in medieval and Renaissance
Europe owe very much to the Arab prec-
edent and to Galen-translations from the
Arabic.

which had started in the 2nd century A.D.
and thus determined the image of Hippo-
crates for the whole period to come; in
Islam as in Europe, Hippocrates became
the symbol of “the true physician”. It
is the more astonishing that hardly any
of the many writings transmitted under
his name can be traced back to him with
full certainty. Dependent on the classifica-
tion, the size of this “Corpus Hippocrati-
cum” varies, but it comprises at least 60
writings. To the Arabs Hippocrates was
well-known; his name appears as Burā,
with suppression of the Greek ending
like in Surā (Socrates) and Dīmurā
(Demokritos), and also as Iburā and
Aburā. The forms Iburāīs, Aburāīs,
etc. are older; Syriac influence is still pres-
ent in Hīfūrāīs, Īfūrāīs.
There is no lack of biographical infor-
mation about Burā among the Arabs;
the longest section is found in Ibn Abī
Uaybia, Uyūn al-anbā . Burā's teachers
are mentioned here, his father Īralīdis
(Heracleides) and his grandfather Burā;
besides his father, the ancient sources
name also others, like Herodicos of
Selymbria. He is said to have lived up to
the age of 95. The Arab biographers, to
be sure, often present misleading infor-
mation, e.g. Ibn Abī Uaybia says that
Burā was trained on Rhodes, Cnidos
and Cos, while Ibn al-ifī makes him
stay for a while in Fīrūhā (i.e. Βέροια =
Aleppo, in the text identified with im)
and Damascus; both pieces of information
perhaps mean no more than that Burā
travelled far and wide, as was already
known in antiquity. On the other hand,
one may assume that the Arabs retained
scattered biographical data which are not
found elsewhere. They were also right
in stating that the Corpus Hippocratium
does not go back to one single author
and that there have been several physi-
cians of this name: the mathematician

(R. Walzer)

Hippocrates

Hippocrates (Ar. Burā), the most
famous physician of antiquity, was born ca.
460 B.C. on the island of Cos, and died ca.
375 in Larissa (Thessaly). He sprang from
the Asclepiads, an old native family of
physicians, where the name Hippocrates
occurred repeatedly. Already in antiquity
he was considered an exceptional and
model physician. This prestige was due to
Galen in the first place, who brought to
its culmination the “Hippocrates-revival”