Arabian Drugs in Early Medieval Mediterranean Medicine

by Zohar Amar, Efraim Lev

Overview

For more than one thousand years Arab medicine held sway in the ancient world, from the shores of Spain in the West to China, India and Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in the East. This book explores the impact of Greek (as well as Indian and Persian) medical heritage on the evolution of Arab medicine and pharmacology, investigating it from the perspective of materia medica – a reliable indication of the contribution of this medical legacy.
Focusing on the main substances introduced and traded by the Arabs in the medieval Mediterranean – including Ambergris, camphor, musk, myrobalan, nutmeg, sandalwood and turmeric – the authors show how they enriched the existing inventory of drugs influenced by Galenic-Arab pharmacology. Further, they look at how these substances merged with the development and distribution of new technologies and industries that evolved in the Middle Ages such as textiles, paper, dyeing and tanning, and with the new trends, demands and fashions regarding spices, perfumes, ornaments (gemstones) and foodstuffs some of which can be found in our modern-day food basket.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781474432122
Publisher:	Edinburgh University Press
Publication date:	02/22/2018
Series:	Edinburgh Studies in Classical Islamic History and Culture
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x (d)

About the Author

Professor Zohar Amar is Director of the Unit on the History of Medicine at Bar-Ilan Universityin Israel. He is member of the editorial board of several scientific journals and author of many monographs and books. His fields of research and teaching especially include: history of the nature in ancient and pre-modern times (particularly in Jewish sources); material culture and everyday life in the Middle Ages; the history of medicine and Ethnopharmacology.

Efraim Lev is Professor in the Department of Israel Studies at the University of Haifa. He had a Post-Doctoral Fellowship at the Wellcome Centre for the History of Medicine at UniversityCollege London and spent research periods as Overseas Visiting Scholar at St. John's College, Cambridge. His main fields of interest and research are medieval Arabic pharmacology and medicine, and ethno-pharmacology. He won various prizes including the George Urdang Medal for pharmaco-historical writings in 2012.

Table of Contents

List of PlatesList of TablesPrefaceMap: The Origin of the Main Medieval Arabian Drugs1. Introduction2. Agricultural and Pharmaceutical Innovations: Milestones in Research and Case Studies3. ‘Arabian’ Substances4. Discussion and ConclusionsBibliographyIndexes

What People are Saying About This

‘Arabic culture provided the melting pot for the medical substances from the West and the East which became the staple ingredients of pre-modern medicine. Amar and Lev are to be congratulated for tracing the origins of natural medicaments and the routes that they followed from South East Asia and India to the Middle East, and from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.’

Charles Burnett

‘Arabic culture provided the melting pot for the medical substances from the West and the East which became the staple ingredients of pre-modern medicine. Amar and Lev are to be congratulated for tracing the origins of natural medicaments and the routes that they followed from South East Asia and India to the Middle East, and from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.’

Editorial Reviews

‘Arabic culture provided the melting pot for the medical substances from the West and the East which became the staple ingredients of pre-modern medicine. Amar and Lev are to be congratulated for tracing the origins of natural medicaments and the routes that they followed from South East Asia and India to the Middle East, and from one end of the Mediterranean to the other.’

Charles Burnett

"Arabic culture provided the melting pot for the medical substances from the West and the East which became the staple ingredients of pre-modern medicine. Amar and Lev are to be congratulated for tracing the origins of natural medicaments and the routes that they followed from South East Asia and India to the Middle East, and from one end of the Mediterranean to the other." — Charles Burnett, Warburg Institute, University of London

From the Publisher