Drawings and Pharmacy in Al-Zahrawi's 10th-Century Surgical Treatise

Contributions From
The Museum of History and Technology
Paper 22
Drawings and Pharmacy in al-Zahrāwī’s
10th-Century Surgical Treatise
Sami Hamarneh
Figure 1.—Reproduction of a page from original Arabic manuscript indexed as Cod. N.F. 476A at Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna. Courtesy Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek.
Probably the earliest independent work in Arabic Spain to embrace the whole of medical knowledge of the time is the encyclopedic al-Tasrīf, written in the late 10th century by Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrāwī, also known as Abulcasis. Consisting of 30 treatises, it is the only known work of al-Zahrāwī and it brought him high prestige in the western world.
Here we are concerned only with his last treatise, on surgery. With its many drawings of surgical instruments, intended for the instruction of apprentices, its descriptions of formulas and medicinal preparations, and its lucid observations on surgical procedures, this treatise is perhaps the oldest of its kind.
Scholars today have available a translation of the text and reproductions of the drawings, but many of the latter are greatly modified from the originals.
This study reproduces examples of al-Zahrāwī’s original illustrations, compares some with early drawings based on them, and comments on passages in the treatise of interest to students of pharmacy and medical therapy.
The Author: Sami Hamarneh undertook this research into the history of medicine in connection with his duties as associate curator of medical sciences in the United States National Museum, Smithsonian Institution.