Sabur Ibn Sahl, Dispensatorium Parvum (al-Aqrabadhin al-Saghir)

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Sabur Ibn Sahl, Dispensatorium Parvum (al-Aqrabadhin alSaghir). Edited and annotated by OLIVER KAHL. Islamic Philosophy, Theology, and Science, Texts and Studies, vol. 16. Leiden: E. J. BRILL, 1994. Pp. x + 260. HFI 145, $83.

The scientific study of Arabic pharmacy, as Kahl observes in his introduction to this important text, is in a somewhat "awkward position" due to such problems as "lost or corrupt sources, inaccurate transmissions, unreliable preliminary studies, premature surveys and, worst of all, uncritical editions" (p. 1). The present annotated edition of a middle ninth-century c.E. pharmaceutical text, preserved in the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in Berlin, should help rectify the serious gap in knowledge of the field. Kahl argues convincingly that the Berlin manuscript, which was probably copied in the ninth century, is the Dispensatorium parvum or al-Aqrabadhin al-saghir of the Christian physician Sabur...