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Join us next Wednesday, January 14th at 5:00 PM, to celebrate the launch of
The Herbal of al-Ghāfiqī: A Facsimile Edition with Critical Essays
Edited by F. Jamil Ragep (Director of McGill’s Institute for Islamic Studies) and Faith Wallis (McGill, History and Classical Studies/Social Studies of Medicine)
This event will be held at McGill’s newly re-opened Osler Library, Canada’s foremost scholarly resource in the history of medicine. Event details >
“Herbals” – collections describing plants used for medicinal purposes – were among the ancient and medieval world’s most valued scientific texts, synthesizing a vast treasury of medical learning to facilitate scientific edification for scholar, bibliophiles, or practical consultation by physicians.
Abu Ja’far al-Ghafiqi (d. ca. 1165 CE) lived in the Arab-Islamic zone of the southern Iberian peninsula called al-Andalus, a land of many cultures, religions, and languages. His Herbal reflects the diverse milieu in which he lived, drawing from ancient Greek sources like Dioscorides and Galen as well as over thirty other works from India as well as the Hellenistic and Islamic worlds.
The manuscript reproduced in this edition was purchased in 1912 by Sir William Osler and is now housed in the Osler Library of the History of Medicine at McGill University. It has entries for herbal, mineral, and animal-derived drugs, illustrated by almost 400 coloured, hand-drawn images of plants and animals. A glossary of over 2,000 secondary entries provides synonyms in Greek, Sanskrit, Syriac, Persian, Berber, Old Spanish, Latin, Coptic, and Armenian, reflecting the international character of medicine and pharmacy at the time.
Click here for more info about the Ghafiqi Project
To learn more about The Herbal of al-Ghāfiqī, click here.
For media requests, please contact publicist Jacqui Davis.
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