Geniza Lab

Medical prescription in Judaeo-Arabic. There is a primary text on recto with a basmala and a 'nāfiʿ inshallāh' in Arabic script. Verso contains multiple additional text blocks, all consisting of medical prescriptions or related.

Medical prescription in difficult Arabic script. Information from Goitein's note card.

Medical prescription composed of ingredients that appear regularly in similar prescriptions of those days. Wine is recommended as an alternative for a sharab (a potion). The verso contains an unrelated Arabic document. (Information from Mediterranean Society, II, pp. 266-7)

On one of the four pages: two lists of materia medica in Arabic, each headed by a basmala, perhaps medical prescriptions. Ingredients include sarcocolla (anzarūt) and white tragacanth (kathīrāʾ abyaḍ). On the other three pages: an unusual mix of Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew poetry. Across from the prescriptions are lines in Judaeo-Arabic. On the other side of the fragment, the right page starts in Judaeo-Arabic and ends in Hebrew. The left page consists of very short lines with the first half in Hebrew and the second half in Judaeo-Arabic. This page is signed David b. Moshe ha-Levi and dated 22 Iyar 1565 Seleucid, which is 1254 CE. ASE

Bifolio. Three of the four pages: mercantile accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. The hand might be known. One page lists an expense of at least 1 1/4 dinars on a doctor. The fourth page is a recipe or prescription in Arabic script. Take roasted onion, tamarind fruit (ṣubbāra), seed of the Roman nettle (ḥabb al-qurrayṣ), possibly dirt (? wasakh al-ḥajar), yeast (khamīra), cucumber (khiyār), and boiled chard. All this should be ground up and boiled in chard water and coriander water until it comes together (ḥattā yanʿamil). It should then be applied to a kerchief (khirqa) and applied to the spot (yulṣaq ʿalā l-mawḍiʿ). The next two lines are undeciphered (the words لطخ/stain and بقر/cow appear). It ends, like a medical prescription, with "Beneficial if God wills" and "Diet: boiled spinach." The purpose is not exactly clear. Needs further examination.

Prescription in Judaeo-Arabic. Two words in Arabic script underneath: yustaʿmal...

Recto: Document in Arabic script. Medical prescription? Seems to list ingredients and quantities. But needs further examination.

Prescription or recipe in Judaeo-Arabic. Likely medical or culinary (wa-yustaʿmal al-... bi-ṭabīkh al-ḥummuṣ(?)... wa-l-ʿaṣāfir...). Mentions honey, cloves, milk. On recto there is a document in Arabic script, far too damaged to read without special imaging.

Popular literature in Arabic script, on the theme of a medical prescription for a lovesick man. Similar to T-S NS 264.27 + T-S NS 224.181 + T-S AS 145.360 + T-S 12.537. Merits further examination. ASE.

Letter to Maimonides with autograph response on verso. "T-S Arabic Box 46, fol. 97, is a small sheet of paper the verso of which contains a note with a request for medical advice. It is interesting to note the ethical note introduced into this medical business by the sentence: 'since my entire aim in this matter is to seek the nearness to God'. The writer presumably means that through preserving health it is possible to better devote onself to the service of God. This brings to mind another similar request addressed to Maimonides in a letter published by D. H. Baneth [see the autograph letter published by Baneth, "Me-halifat ha-Mikhtavin shel ha-Rambam", Studies in Memory of Asher Gulak and Samuel Klein, pp. 50 ff.]: 'I desire from your bounty, my lord--since you, together with God, can heal my soul and its organs, so that it can employ itself in the study of the sciences--to prescribe for me what I should eat, since this is necessary, so that I can more easily understand these matters [the philosophical problems described in the first part of the letter]'. That letter has also in common with ours the fact that Maimonides' reply is written on the back of the sheet." - S. M. Stern. There are two blocks of text in Maimonides's hand on verso, at ninety degrees to each other. One is almost entirely illegible, does not appear to relate to the question on recto, and (very speculatively) could be a responsum for a legal question that the writer sent separately (though Stern would differ, as he read "dirham of lemon" where I read "shall be bound by a vow"). The other block is the answer to the dietary questions on recto. ASE.

Verso: Medical prescription or recipe in Arabic script. Quantities of the ingredients are written out both in words and in Greek/Coptic numerals. (Information from FGP and AA.)

Culinary or medical recipe. In Arabic script, Kūfī, seven lines. On parchment. Dating: "Particularly old" per Goitein; likely 10th century or earlier. This was probably torn from a page that originally had more recipes, as the tops of the letters from the next entry are just barely visible. Needs further examination. (Information from Goitein’s index card)

Medical prescription for a linctus containing opium. (Information from Goitein's index card and CUDL)

Recto: Medical prescription. In Arabic script. Describes the preparation of a rob containing nard, raisins, berberis and jalap. Verso: Accounts in Judaeo-Arabic. (Information from CUDL)

Note containing medical advice, with recipes to improve vision, treat sciatica and painful joints, act as a purgative; and protect against the cold, humidity and spleen pain. Ingredients mentioned include orange, musk, colocynth, and Galen's seed, along with the relevant quantities and weights. (Information from Goitein's index cards; and H. Isaacs and C. Baker, Medical and Para-medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections, Cambridge University Library, 1994, 80) EMS

Medical prescription in Judaeo-Arabic.

Medical prescription in Arabic script. For a topical remedy. Written in an unusually beautiful hand and formatting, with the ingredients arranged in a list rather than a paragraph. On verso, the instructions for how to compound it and use it. Mentions "istiʿmāl al-iṭrīfal." It should be used for three days, at the same time on each day. Needs further examination.

Poem(s) in Judaeo-Arabic containing advice for the lovesick, written as a faux medical prescription. In the hand of Nāṣir al-Adīb al-ʿIbrī. The recto contains a marriage contract dated 1298 CE. Nāṣir made a pair of bifolios by making a horizontal cut across the ketubba and then placing a vertical crease in each of the resulting halves. Probably the upper bifolio nested inside of the lower bifolio, as the lower bifolio contains both the beginning and the end of the text. (Information in part from Cecilia Palombo and Goitein's attached notes.) ASE

Recipe in Arabic script. Likely a medical prescription.

Medical prescription in Arabic script.