Medicine – One of the most important works of the middle ages – Avicenna (Abu ‘Ali al-Husayn ibn Abdalla ibn Sina). – Liber canonis totius medicine…a Gerardo Cremone(n)si ab arabica lingua in latina(m) reductus.

The Canon of Medicine is an encyclopedia of medicine in five books compiled by Persian physician-philosopher Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and completed in 1025. Perhaps one of the most famous and influential early books, that continued to influence later creations. It presents an overview of the contemporary medical knowledge of the Islamic world, which had been influenced by earlier traditions including Greco-Roman medicine, particularly Galen, Persian medicine, Chinese medicine and Indian medicine. The Canon of Medicine remaind a medical authority for centuries. It set the standards for medicine in Mediaval Europe and the Islamic world and was used as a standard medical textbook through the 18th century in Europe. It is an important text in Unani medicine, a form of traditional medicine practiced in India. – Title printed in red an black within an elaborate woodcut architectural frame with portraits of Hippocrates, Galen and Avicena as mediaval doctors. – Title-page with two small wholes missing some parts of illustration, on the reverse side missing a few letters. Parts of the leaves with contemporary annotations, also partly some underlinings, two pages of index in copy, last two leaves of index with small whole missing a few letters; edge a bit browned. – “Avicenna’s Canon is the most famous medical textbook ever written and it has remained as a medical bible for a longer period than any other work” (Osler, 1922). One the most important medical works of the Middle Ages. This edition includes the complete Qanun, the most authoritative medical text of the Islamic world, written in Arabic by Ibn Sina (ca. 980-1037), and includes the Latin translation of Gherardo da Cremona (ca. 1114-1187), which formed the basis of medical training in the Western world from the early 13th to the mid-17th century. The present Lyon edition appears to be very scarce: only four other copies are listed in sales records of the past century. Completed in 1025, al-Qanun (also known as the Canon of Medicine) is divided into five books, which discuss the basic principles of medicine, the materia medica (listing about 800 drugs), pathology, diseases affecting the body as a whole, and finally the formulary. It was first printed in Latin translation in 1472 and went through many editions. The present work is the second complete Lyon edition, the first having been printed in 1498 by Jean Trechsel, and an abridged version appeared in 1508. The present edition has the same contents as that published in Venice in 1505, but in addition comprises the Life of Avicenna by Franciscus Calphurnius and “annotationes, errata et castigationes in Avicennae opera” by the French physician Symphorien Champier. Ibn Sina, known in the West by his Latinized name Avicenna, was physician to the ruling caliphs. The influence of his Qanun can hardly be overestimated. Translated into Latin in the 12th century, it became a standard textbook of Galenic medicine, influencing many generations of physicians. “One of the most famous medical texts ever written, a complete exposition of Galenism. Neuburger says: ‘It stands for the epitome of all precedent development, the final codification of all Graeco-Arabic medicine’. It dominated the medical schools of Europe and Asia for five centuries” (Garrison/M.). – Durling 380. USTC 145535. Cf. PMM 11. Garrison/Morton 43. Lilly Library, Notable Medical Books, p. 53. Not in Baudrier.