Geniza Lab

Medical text. An extract from the Egyptian-origin physician ʿAlī b. Riḍwān's (d. 1060s) citation of Galen's views on the four humours and the causes and effects of imbalances between them. Verso: Schematic representation of the four seasons and humours.

First page of a treatise of phlebotomy regarding nomenclature, names, and the number of blood veins (360) in a human body according to Galen and the (appropriate) sites for bloodletting. The author says that physicians should be wary of letting blood only from specific veins so as to not cause harm to people. They are veins of the elbow, arms, hands, vein in the forehead, vein between the two eyes, vein inside the nose, and two veins of the temple. Verso: Title page of the book: Kitāb fīhi tasmiyat al-ʿurūq li Jālīnūs [sic] wa ʿadaduhā wahiya thālāthumiʾa wa sittūn ʿirqan wa al-mawāḍi‘ allatī yufṣadu minhā. The name towards the bottom reads as Muḥammad Ibrāhim abū ʿUmar ibn Zaydūn al-Qabsh[..].