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New Genizah Documents 11*

manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collection by Isaacs and Baker.10 The
compilers conclude their introduction to the catalogue as follows: ‘Much more
could be said of the Genizah medical material, but enough basic information has
been provided to encourage future scholars with an interest in such matters to
pursue further investigation’.11 The additional catalogues that were subsequently
published,12 and the pursuit of further research focused on the T-S collection,
have provided information on more than 150 fragments associated with medicine
and medical practice.13

Medicine and pharmacology in the medieval Middle East have thus far been
approached through medical literature, with the assumption that the theoretical
medical texts of that period are a reflection of the actual practice of medicine
by contemporary physicians and medical practitioners. The extent to which
the principles of those treatises were actually carried out in practice has yet
to be explored. Pormann and Savage-Smith wrote about this issue: ‘Finding
reliable evidence regarding the actual practice of medicine is fraught with
difficulties. Medieval medical treatises seldom mention specific patients, or
tell us how often, if ever, they actually carried out their carefully formulated
instructions and with what success’.14 Fortunately, the Cairo Genizah supplies
us with a wealth of medieval fragments dealing with various practical medical

10 H. D. Isaacs, (with the assistance of C. F. Baker) Medical and Para-medical Manuscripts
in the Cambridge Genizah Collection, Cambridge University Library Genizah Series, 11
(Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1994).

11 Isaacs, Medical, (as in n. 10) p. xvi.
12 C. F. Baker and M. Polliack, Arabic and Judaeo-Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge

Genizah collections (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2001); A. Shivtiel and F.
Niessen, Arabic and Judeo- Arabic Manuscripts in the Cambridge Genizah Collections,New
Series (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2006).
13 F. Niessen and E. Lev, ‘Addenda to Isaacs Catalogue “Medical and Para-medical Manuscript
in the Cambridge Genizah Collection” Together with the Edition of Two Medical Documents
T-S 12.33 and T-S NS 297.56,’ Hebrew Union College Annual 77 (2008), pp. 131y165.
14 P. Pormann and E. Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh University Press,
Edinburgh, 2007), p. 115.