Geniza Lab

Late Judaeo-Arabic medical prescriptions for preparing bandages, e.g. for tumors. Headers in red ink.

Bifolium of magical recipes for diverse problems, many medical. E.g., against fever: recite Psalm 34 over olive oil and anoint yourself ("effective if God wills").

Page 1: Medical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic giving two prescriptions for pediatric ophthalmia (ramad), the second of which is prefaced, "The doctors in Fusṭāṭ use this. . . " Pages 2–4: Calligraphic and vocalized verses, mostly or all from Psalms.

Medical recipes in Judaeo-Arabic, two folios faded with water damage but legible in most places. On the recto of the first folio the term "rūḥ / רוח" is reused in varied combinations such as "רוח אל כצרד", "רוח אל שראב", "רוח אל בארוד" (l. 7r, 10r, 13r). On the first folio's verso the unit of measure "אווק" is also in use which in medieval Geniza documents is similar to our current notion of ounces that are proportional to pounds (Goldberg, Trade and Institutions in the Medieval Mediterranean, xix). In an early modern context, however, these "אווק" may indicate a much heavier unit of weight closer to 1.28 kilograms per "אווק" (Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire, 157). These units are accompanied by eastern Arabic numerals that indicate the weight of ingredients such as "wax / שמע" and perhaps "saffron / זפראן" (f. 1 l. 6-7v). Based on the script usage in this fragment it is likely that its date of recording lies between the 15th-19th centuries therfore these weights are more likely in the heavier Ottoman-era variant of "אווק". MCD.

8 pages of a Hebrew and Judaeo-Arabic work on magic and medicine.

Document dated 21 December 1817 (12 Tevet 5578) in which Mordekhai Romano details the plan for medical treatment for the children of his niece Raḥel, who is the daughter of his brother Shemuel and the wife of Yāqūtī Yuʿbaṣ. Mordekhai will bring Dr. (al-Ḥakīm) Kaspa (?) to treat Raḥel's children who are blind from birth. The doctor is to receive 150 qirsh in advance (la-qūddām) and another 150 if he is successful. The last few lines are trickier to understand and may say that the second payment of 150 will come out of Raḥel's ketubba.

8 pages from an alphabetically-organized index of a Spanish medical textbook.

18 pages from a Judaeo-Arabic medical treatise.

Medical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic.

Medical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic on stings and bites.

Medical treatise in Hebrew.

Medical treatise in Judaeo-Arabic. Bifolium from a Judaeo-Arabic paramedical treatise on the virtues of various kinds of animal substances. ¶ . . . grind it and knead it with sheep dung and some saffron and apply it to the gout that arises from the cold. ¶ And against bedbugs, take the bile of a billy goat and mix it with oil and beat it gently and paint with it the bed and the walls, and the bedbugs will go if God wills. ¶ The brain of the kid. Cook it in oil and add sugar and Kirmani cumin and mix it gently, and drink one mithqal in hot water for pain of the heart and the lung. ¶ The brain of the goat. . . . ¶ Goat milk is lighter than the milk of women or donkeys, and camel milk is good for a dry cough. ¶ To make iron poisonous, take sour goat milk and mix it with the blood of a billy goat and the urine of an ox, and mix it together and rub it on the blades and the arrowheads, and immerse the blades in it when they are red-hot. . . . This is for an enemy. ¶ The hide of the weasel. If you make parchment from it and write on it for the insane and the possessed (or captives? מחבוסין), it is effective. ¶ The Barbary sheep. The bile of the Barbary sheep, if it is mixed with frankincense and ginger and drunk in the bath on an empty stomach, is effective against pain of the spleen. ¶ The brain of the Barbary sheep. Mix it with honey and rue water, and he who has pain in the liver should drink two dirhams of it on an empty stomach. It is hot. ¶ The monkey. He who tastes the meat of a monkey will never speak again but will ישיר (?). ¶ The heart of the monkey. It should be roasted and יגכף (?). Grind it and dissolve two dirhams of it in wine and aged honey, and palpitations and shortness of breath will go away, and it will give courage to the coward and sharpen the mind and help with a headache. And if you wish to give someone bad dreams, put the hide or the hair of a monkey under his head. ¶ Take as snuff a lentil-sized piece of monkey kidney with the milk of a female slave and violet oil for the smell that [the fragment ends here]." ASE

Medical treatise in Hebrew, 8 pages, with magical/astrological/demonic elements.

8 pages from a Judaeo-Arabic and Hebrew medical treatise.

12 pages from a Judaeo-Arabic medical treatise.

12 pages from a Judaeo-Arabic medical treatise.

4 pages from a Hebrew medical treatise, with notations in the margin in the same hand.

Bifolium from a Hebrew medical treatise.

Bifolium from a Judaeo-Arabic medical treatise with headers in red ink and certain terms translated into Latin (?).

Bifolium from a Judaeo-Arabic medical treatise with some corrections in a different hand.