Catalogue: Magical/Astrological Medicine

[Magical Procedures and Invocations Useful for Illness]   (MS A 89, item [a])

Anonymous

This is an anonymous and untitled essay giving magical procedures and invocations useful for illness, dated 1198 (= 1783-4).

No other copy has been identified.

Physical Description

Arabic. 5 pages (Preliminary pp. [1-5]). Dimensions 21.5 x 14.5 (text area 13.5 x 8) cm; 30 lines per page, variable.

The copy is dated (p. [5]) 1198 (1783-4). It was written about two years after the main three items in the volume were transcribed in the volume, but by a different hand than copied the main treatises.

The text is written in a North African (Maghribi) script using black ink, with much of the text written diagonally.

The volume has been paginated rather than foliated, with the pages numbered every other page beginning with item 1.

The coarse ivory paper has vertical laid lines single chain lines, and watermarks (three large lunar crescents). The paper is lightly soiled with thumbing and worm-eaten. The edges has been trimmed from their original size to fit the binding.

The volume consists of 293 pages and 13 preliminary pages (Preliminary pages [6-7] and [12-13] are blank; numbered pages 182-184, 256, 272, 291, and 293 are blank). Item 1 (pp. 1-181) contains a treatise on sexual hygiene, al-Rawḍ al-yāni‘ fī aḥkām al-tazwīj wa-ādāb al-majāmi‘, by al- Tamakrūtī (MS A 89, item 1), and item 2 (pp. 185-255) is Kitāb al-Īḍāḥ fīi asrār al-nikīḥ by al-Shayzarī (MS A 89, item 2). The 3rd item (pp. 257-290) is the anonymous general treatise on magical medicine, al-Manāfi‘ al-bayyinah wa-mā yaṣilu bi-al-arba‘ah al-azminah (MS A 89, item 3). Preliminary pp. [1-5] contain the anonymous magical procedures and invocations useful for illness here catalogued; preliminary pp. [9-11] consist of an unidentified alchemical fragment (MS A 89, item [b]). Page 292 contains a protective invocation. Preliminary p. [7] is blank except for a two-line casual note.

Binding

The volume is bound in green/black marbled paper over red leather over pasteboard front and back covers and envelope flap. There is a red leather spine and doublures of yellow/blue/green/red printed paper. There are plain paper endpapers.

Provenance

The volume was purchased in 1941 by the Army Medical Library from A. S. Yahuda (ELS 2366; Med. 372?) who acquired it in Tangier, Morocco.

References

Schullian/Sommer, Cat. of Incun. & MSS., entry A89, pp. 327-8. This item is not mentioned.

NLM Microfilm Reel: FILM 48-129 no. 6