Medical and Para-medical Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections

The collection of Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic and Arabic manuscript material that was deposited in the Cairo Genizah as early as a thousand years ago contains some 1,600 manuscript fragments comprising medical and para-medical items as well as correspondence relating to medical activities, all of them from medieval Mediterranean society.

These medical items have been located, identified and described in the form of a catalogue to provide access to the originals.

Among the fragments are Arabic and Hebrew translations of the works of Galen and Hippocrates in addition to commentaries on them; the medical writings of Avicenna, Rhazes, al-Majusi and Maimonides; specialist treatises on the eye, on fevers, on sexual medicine, on poisons; pharmacopoeias; and also a number of rare and previously unknown works.

In addition, the collection contains correspondence between patients and physicians, medical certificates, and other fragments relating to medicine.