An Interactive Annotated World Bibliography of Printed and Digital Works in the History of Medicine and the Life Sciences from Circa 2000 BCE to 2024 by Fielding H. Garrison (1870-1935), Leslie T. Morton (1907-2004), and Jeremy M. Norman (1945- ) Traditionally Known as “Garrison-Morton”

16066 entries, 14153 authors and 1947 subjects. Updated: December 29, 2024

AMMAR AL MAWSILĪ, Abu'l -l Kāsim

1 entries
  • 3666.82

Chirurgia cum formis instrumentorum (Tr: Gerardus Cremonensis). IN: Guy de Chauliac: Chirurgia parva. Add: Albulcasis: Chirurgia cum formis instrumentorum. Jesus filius Hali: De oculis (Tr: Dominicus Marrochinus). Canamusali de Baldach: De oculis.

Venice: Bonetus Locatellus, 15001501.

The surgical section of Albucasis’s Altasrif, the first rational, complete and illustrated treatise on surgery and surgical instruments. The author was an  Arab Muslim physician and surgeon who lived in Al-Andalus. During the Middle Ages this was the leading textbook on surgery until it was superseded by Saliceto. The work was first published in print in the Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona, in this collective edition, in which Guy de Chauliac's surgery was the lead title. Besides its significance in general surgery and for the history of surgical instruments, Albucasis's work was “of great importance for the development of practical dentistry” (Hoffmann-Axthelm). Chapter 28 discusses excision of epulis. Chapter 29 deals with calculus. Albucasis understood that calculus on the teeth is a major cause of periodontal disease and gave explicit instructions for scaling the teeth, describing the instruments which he invented for this purpose. Chapter 30 covers tooth extraction, and Chapter 33 contains one of the earliest discussions of tooth prostheses, and describes some oral surgery procedures. The work contains some of the earliest illustrations of dental instruments. See No. 5550.  

Note that Albucasis's surgery, a work of significant practical value, was the last, or one of the last, of the medieval classics of surgery to be printed. ISTC no. ig00564000. Digital facsimile from the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek at this link.  

A superbly illustrated 14th century MS of Albucasis was reproduced in full color facsimile as Codex Vindobonensis Series Nova 2641, Graz, Akademische Druck, 1979.



Subjects: DENTISTRY › Dental Instruments & Apparatus, DENTISTRY › Oral Surgery, DENTISTRY › Periodontics, DENTISTRY › Prosthodontics, INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES › Dental Instruments, INSTRUMENTS & TECHNOLOGIES › Surgical Instruments, ISLAMIC OR ARAB MEDICINE, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE , MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › France, MEDIEVAL MEDICINE › Medieval Islamic or Arab Medicine, OPHTHALMOLOGY , SURGERY: General