Preface. 



The aim of this book is to serve as a small vocabulary for students 

 of medical texts containing anatomical terms in Arabic or Latin (or more 

 properly the barbarous Latin of medieval sources). The need of aids in 

 the interpretation of such Arabic and Latino-Barbarous terms is strongly 

 felt by everyone reading old works on medicine written in those languages, 

 and is confirmed by the statements of the famous Professor of Arabic, 

 Edward G. Browne, who in his absorbingly interesting book: Arabian 

 Medicine (Cambridge 1921I, page 33 et seq., says as follows: » Before pro- 

 ceeding further, however, there are one or two preliminary matters on 

 which a few words should be said, and first of all as to the evolution of 

 Arabic scientific terminology. The Syrians, as we have seen, were too 

 much disposed to transcribe Greek words as they stood, without any attempt 

 at elucidation, leaving the reader to make the best he could of them. The 

 medieval Latin translators from the Arabic did exactly the same, and the 

 Latin Qdnun of Avicenna swarms with barbarous words which are not 

 merely transcriptions, but in many cases almost unrecognizable mis- 

 transcriptions, of Arabic originals. Thus the coccyx is named in Arabic 

 'us'u§ . . ., or, with the definite article, a/-'its'//s . . . , which appears in the 

 Latin version as alhsoos) al-qaian .... the lumbar region, appears as 

 alchatim; ai-'ajuz or al-'ajiz. . . , the sacrum, variously appears as alhauis and 

 al-hagiazi; and an-nawdjidh . . . , the wisdom-teeth, as imaged or neguegidi . . .« 



Some terms have also been selected from authors belonging to the 

 XYlth century; however, these terms were also to some extent in use 

 in the Middle Ages. 



The book does not lay any claim to completeness; yet. I venture to 

 hope that it contains sufficient material to be of real use to medical histo- 

 rians, and to Arabic and medieval Latin philologists as well. 



In the vocabulary. I have included practically all anatomical terms to 

 be found in the well known historical works by Ilyrtl, as well as those in 

 the lists of Simon and Koning. The Arabic anatomical texts edited by 

 Dr. med Simon (Anatomy of Galen) and by Dr. med. de Koning (ar-Razi, 

 al- c Abbas, Abu 1-Qasim) have been examined. Besides these, the chief 

 sources have been the Canon Medicinae by Avicenna and the corre- 

 sponding Arabic text (Ibn Sinn: al-Qanfin fi t-tibb), printed at Bulaq. 

 The copious medieval Latin texts on anatomy and surgery, edited by 

 Professor Dr. K. Sudhoff, the eminent scholar of the history of medicine, 

 have proved very useful to me. 



