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12* Amir Ashur and Efraim Lev

issues that the various communities of the medieval Middle Ages addressed,
including specific patients, prescriptions and medical instructions.

During the last decade, thanks to an interdisciplinary group of scholars
studying Genizah manuscripts pertaining to medical issues, an exceptional
window has opened into the Jewish world of practical medicine and
pharmacology,15 as well as the theoretical medical knowledge that community
members had access to or created themselves.16 The resulting synthesis of the
practical and theoretical knowledge of medicine achieved by this community
provides a unique insight into the wider ‘Mediterranean Society’ of the time.
The first phase of this synthesis, the reconstruction of the medieval inventory
of the practical materia medica of the Genizah community, has now been
concluded. It has generated a wealth of publications in various academic
platforms.17 Beyond that, research has shed new light on several important issues
such as medical theory vs. practice,18 medical theory (mainly identifications
of early versions of unique medical books),19 and medical practice (mainly

15 According to Goitein, the members of the Jewish communities of medieval Egypt ‘are to a
certain extent representative of their class in the Mediterranean world in general’; Goitein,
Mediterranean (as in n. 4), I, p. viii.

16 E. Lev, and Z. Amar, ‘‘Fossils’ of Practical Medical Knowledge from Medieval Cairo’,
Journal of Ethnopharmacology 119 (2008), pp. 24y40.

17 E. Lev and Z. Amar, ‘Reconstruction of the Inventory of Materia Medica used by Members
of the Jewish Community of Medieval Cairo according to Prescriptions found in the Taylor-
Schechter Genizah Collection, Cambridge’, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 108 (2006),
pp. 428y444; E. Lev, ‘Drugs Held and Sold by Pharmacists of the Jewish Community
of Medieval (11thy14th centuries) Cairo according to Lists of Materia Medica Found at
the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection, Cambridge’, Journal of Ethnopharmacology 110
(2007), pp. 275y293. E. Lev and Z. Amar, Practical Materia Medica of the Medieval Eastern
Mediterranean According to the Cairo Genizah (Brill, Leiden, 2008).

18 E. Lev and Z. Amar, ‘Medieval Materia Medica — Practice vs. Theory — the Case of the
Cairo Genizah’, Medical History 51 (2007), pp. 507y526.

19 L. Chipman and E. Lev, ‘Syrup from the Apothecary’s Shop: a Genizah Fragment Containing
one of the Earliest Manuscripts of Minhaj al-dukkan’, Journal of Semitic Studies 50 (2006),
pp. 137y167; E. Lev and L. Chipman, ‘A Fragments of Judeo-Arabic Manuscripts of Sa¯bu¯r
Ibn Sahl al-Aqra¯ba¯dh¯ın al-Sagh¯ır Found in the Taylor-Schechter Cairo Genizah Collection’,

Medieval Encounter 13 (2˙007), pp. 347y362; L. Chipman and E. Lev, ‘Take a Lame

and Decrepit Hyena..... A Genizah Study of Two Additional Fragments of Manuscripts