The only known early health guide for the pilgrim to Mecca, by the Syrian Melkite Christian physician, scientist and translator.

The first critical edition of Book 29 of Shem Tov ben Isaac's Sefer ha-Shimmush, and a lexicological analysis of the medico-botanical terms in the first of the two synonym lists of this book. The Sefer ha-Shimmush was compiled in Southern France in the middle of the thirteenth century. The list edited in this volume consists of Hebrew or Aramaic lemmas, which are glossed by Arabic, Latin and Romance (Old Occitan and, in part, Old Catalan) synonyms written in Hebrew characters. Containing over 700 entries, this edition is one of the most extensive glossaries of its kind.

One of the few texts on pediatrics that circulated during the Middle Ages, this short Latin tretise is the translation of a lost Arabic original attributed--perhaps mistakenly--to Rhazes.

"Galen's impact on Islamic civilization, mainly on medicine but also on physics and philosophy, was enormous. His most important books were mediated through "summaries" which not only shortened, but in some cases also revised Galenic teachings. Several versions of these summaries exist, and their appreciation is critical for a proper understanding of the development of medieval science. This book presents the first editions, translations, and studies of the remaining summaries to On Critical Days. In Galenic theory, fevers develop towards a crisis which will determine the fate of a patient" (publisher).

"Moses Maimonides' On Coitus was composed at the request of an unknown high-ranking official who asked for a regimen that would be easy to adhere to, and that would increase his sexual potency, as he had a large number of slave girls. It is safe to assume that it was popular in Jewish and non-Jewish circles, as it survives in several manuscripts, both in Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic. The present edition by Gerrit Bos contains the original Arabic text, three medieval Hebrew translations, two Latin versions from the same translation (edited by Charles Burnett), and a Slavonic translation (edited by Will Ryan and Moshe Taube)" (publisher).

"The authors publish a previously unedited Regimen of Health attributed to Avenzoar (Ibn Zuhr), translated at Montpellier in 1299 in a collaboration between a Jewish philosopher and a Christian surgeon, the former translating the original Arabic into their shared Occitan vernacular, the latter translating that into Latin. They use manuscript evidence to argue that the text was produced in two stages, first a quite literal version, then a revision improved in style and in language adapted to contemporary European medicine. Such collaborative translations are well known, but the revelation of the inner workings of the translation process in this case is exceptional. A separate Hebrew translation by the philosopher (also edited here) gives independent evidence of the lost Arabic original" (publisher).

"The present consilium, commonly known as De causis accidentium, after the Latin translation by John de Capua, was, like the earlier consilium On the Regimen of Health, composed by Maimonides at the request of al-Malik al-Afḍal Nūr al-Dīn Alī, Saladin’s eldest son. As a result of not adopting the lifestyle and dietary recommendations in On the Regimen of Health, al-Afḍal may have continued to suffer from a number of afflictions, amongst them hemorrhoids, depression, constipation, and, possibly, a heart condition. The consilium was written after 1200, the year in which al-Afḍal was deposed and banished from Egypt permanently, but probably not long before 1204, the year in which Maimonides died" (publisher).

"Maimonides’ On the Regimen of Health was composed at an unknown date at the request of al-Malik al-Afḍal Nūr al-Dīn Alī, Saladin’s eldest son who complained of constipation, indigestion, and depression. The treatise must have enjoyed great popularity in Jewish circles, as it was translated three times into Hebrew as far as we know; by Moses ben Samuel ibn Tibbon in the year 1244, by an anonymous translator, and by Zeraḥyah ben Isaac ben She’altiel Ḥen who was active as a translator in Rome between 1277 and 1291. The present edition by Gerrit Bos contains the original Arabic text, the medieval Hebrew translations and the Latin translations, the latter edited by Michael McVaugh" (publisher).

"Hippocrates’ Aphorisms enjoyed great popularity in the ancient and medieval world and, according to Maimonides, it was Hippocrates’ most useful work as it contained aphorisms, which every physician should know by heart. They were translated into Hebrew several times, but it was Maimonides’ Commentary on Hippocrates’ Aphorisms that made the work influential in Jewish circles. For the composition of his commentary, Maimonides consulted the Aphorismsthrough the commentary by Galen, translated by Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. This edition of Maimonides’ Arabic commentary and its Hebrew translations, the first with an English translation based on the Arabic text, is part of a project undertaken by Gerrit Bos to critically edit Maimonides’ medical works" (publisher).

"The original Arabic text of Maimonides’ major medical work, Medical Aphorisms, was critically edited and translated into English by Gerrit Bos in the years 2004-2017, and published in earlier volumes of the book series The Medical Works of Moses Maimonides. The present work is a new critical edition of the medieval Hebrew translation by Nathan ha-Meʾati, who was active as a translator of scientific texts in Rome in the late thirteenth century, where his colleague Zeraḥyah Ḥen had completed a translation of the same Maimonidean text in 1277, only a few years earlier. Nathan aimed to provide the general reader with a translation that was easier to understand than Zeraḥyah's translation. The present critical edition of Nathan’s translation is primarily based on MS Paris, BN, héb. 1174, and not on MS Paris, BN, héb. 1173, used by Suessmann Muntner for his edition in 1959, as this copy suffers from many mistakes and corruptions" (publisher).

"In early eleventh century Zaragoza, the eminent Jewish scholar Abū l-Walīd Marwān ibn Janāḥ wrote a glossary containing almost 1100 entries, entitled Kitāb al-Talkhīṣ. This important text, considered lost until recently, contains Arabic and foreign-language names of simple drugs, weights, measures, and other medical terms. In the present volume, the Kitāb al-Talkhīṣ is edited and translated for the first time by Gerrit Bos and Fabian Käs. In detailed commentaries, the editors identify the substances mentioned in the Talkhīṣ. They also elaborate on the role of the text in the history of Arabic glossaries concerned with medical nomenclature. Special attention is paid to Ibn Janāḥ’s Ibero-Romance phytonyms, analysed in depth by Mailyn Lübke and Guido Mensching" (publisher).