The Avicenna Canon Medicinae – An Illustrated Medical Book From 13th Century Paris

First published in 13th Century Paris, the Avicenna, Canon Medicinae is an illustrated medical text book made from tempera and gold leaf on parchment. Shelf marked Besançon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 0457, the work is a Latin translation of Avicenna’s Canon medicinae, one of the most important medical texts that the later medieval Latin west absorbed from the Middle East.

 

 

The Persian doctor Avicenna wrote the text in Arabic in the 9th century to bring together medical knowledge from antiquity, that of Greek physicians Galen and Hippocrates, as well as the science of Razi (Muḥammad ibn Zakarīy Abū Bakr al -, 864?-925?). The Canon of Avicenna was the main text for the teaching of medicine until the 16th century.

 

 

The images can be a little graphic and a little grim, including what looks like a Caesarean Section, performed after the mother died as an emergency procedure to ensure the baby can be baptized before it also dies, hernias, seasiCKness, tables of medical consultations or surgical operations, borders including suites of fantastic quadrupedal animals, birds and fish, a goitre, painful eyes, noses and ears, one patient with badly swollen testicles, and another with a large sword stuck in his head .