Page 224 - GQ-9

16* Amir Ashur and Efraim Lev

professional; without or containing very brief praise and flattery;
without or giving very short quotations from the Bible and other
Jewish sources.
C Practical prescription — a medical recipe and dietary advice given
by a doctor to his patients for preparation by a pharmacist. The main
characteristics of this genre in the Genizah are widely discussed in
previous publications.31

Edited documents:

Document A
T-S 10J16.16

Paper; 1 leaf; 20.2 x 14.2; 18 lines. 12thy13th century.32

Eye diseases are the most prevalent sickness mentioned in the Genizah,
and the following letter is no exception. In this consilia type of document, as
described in the Isaacs catalogue: ‘the writer is suffering from an ulcer on the
cornea, a mature cataract in which the lens has become opaque “like a piece
of marble” and acute ophthalmia’.

This is a two-way communication between Jewish physicians, the first
named Abu¯ Zikr¯ı, consulting a senior colleague called Abu¯ ‘Al¯ı, regarding the
right treatment of patients who suffer from eye disease.

Many already published letters contain references to ocular disorders, the
agony of suffering from eye-related problems, and the substances used to treat
them . For example, Israel b. Nathan of Jerusalem asked Naharai to send him
asphalt from Alexandria ‘since it is impossible to find it in Jerusalem’ (T-S
Or.1080 J78). In another letter Israel explains that he needs the substance to

31 See Lev, Medieval Egyptian (as in n. 21); Chipman and Lev, Arabic Prescriptions (as in n.
21).

32 Isaacs (as in n. 10), no. 62; Jefferson and Hunter, Bibliography (as in n. 31), p. 95.