The Canon of Medicine

it stands thus from the former. And I say this mode is a certain one, hinting almost at the deficiency of Sal. Saladin of Ascoli. What indeed are the causes of Habbas. Haly Abbas in his practical art? It does not harm us, since where cicuta hemlock is written in Greek, it is cooling: to cool blackbirds, for it is food to them. Just as it is not expedient to eat elleborus hellebore because it is food for quails; so too for men: where Constantine translated iusquiamus henbane, it does not kill sparrows, but rather nourishes them. It is not necessary for men to be nourished by hellebore or veratrum white hellebore just as quails are. Whence Sal. in the completionum Book of Completions, of which he attempts to interpret the series: Conium hemlock is rarely a food for a thrush, yet it is a medicine for a man; and again, hellebore is food for a quail, but a medicine for a man. How dissonantly, therefore, does Saladin interpret the series! Similarly, Avicenna, having recited many opposing opinions about succaram a toxic substance, possibly henbane or hemlock, finally coincides with Dioscorides in reciting his discussions on hemlock. Concerning which, indeed, Haly Abbas in the second book of practice says: Succaramum is a sleeping, lethal thing due to its coldness; if anyone takes a little of it in wine, it induces sleep. Some also say that succaram is a species of henbane, just as was said about hemlock. Whatever the case may be, it appears cold and poisonous. Concerning this, see Pietro d’Abano in the third book of phlegms, and in his Conciliator a major medieval medical compendium in the 150th differentia chapter/distinction. Likewise, concerning hemlock, see the same in the 150th, for Constantine places it as hot and dry in the third degree. Similarly, Averroes in the third Colliget a medical summary. Pietro d’Abano, however, says that terrestrial hemlock is hot and dry; Constantine and the author of Circa Instans a popular medieval herbal were of that opinion. Democritus estimated hemlock to be a type of henbane and places it as cold. Aquatic hemlock, however, is undoubtedly poisonous and pestilential, which d’Abano thinks kills by the greatest cold and heat.

Dubium Quartum Fourth Doubt in Avicenna concerning the nature of Coriander.

Avicenna maintains about coriander that it is cold and dry. Galen, however, Hippocrates, Isaac, and Averroes in the fifth Colliget place it as hot, composed of contrary substances: that is, of a bitter substance, an aqueous substance, and a styptic one; and according to this, it performs diverse operations. And thus Averroes holds with Saladin and Isaac against Avicenna. The property of coriander is to restrain vapors from the head; and for this reason, it is placed in the food of a patient with epilepsy caused by the vapor of the stomach, and it also benefits vertigo caused by choleric and phlegmatic vapor. Yet, its excessive consumption generates dimness of vision, benefits heart palpitations in the hot-tempered, is of slow digestion, comforts the stomach when heated, and settles dry eructation after a meal. Some of the newer authors dose coriander from 6 to 10 grains, though I have not read this in a famous author.

Of Saphati a skin disease, perhaps dandruff or psoriasis and its remedies; Avicenna’s Fifth Doubt.

Avicenna uses the same remedies for saphati that Paul of Aegina uses for lichenes lichen or impetigo, namely the dung of a lizard and the dung of thrushes that specifically eat rice. Because Paul calls those birds that eat rice not thrushes, but rather starlings, we have mentioned above the error of the Arabs, and especially of Avicenna, who often puts thrushes for starlings. That Avicenna also [uses] saphati for tinea ringworm/scald-head, not only dry as Rhazes sometimes [does], but also moist—namely, tucia zinc oxide, climia, chimolea, burned paper with vinegar, and pine gum with balanstia pomegranate flowers and vinegar and rose oil—all these things Paul of Aegina applies for the cure of sauri a certain species of moist ringworm, as it is named. In Avicenna, all species of saphati are afflictions of the skin of the head. For saphati, beginning with what (as Avicenna says) are small, fixed, light pustules, divided in the count of places, and then ulcerating, are nothing other than exanthemata skin eruptions, which Paul writes are of a reddish color and rough, ulcerating the highest part of the head. Syringi fistula/ulcer, however, which is a species of moist saphati in Avicenna, is a favus honeycomb-like eruption among the Greeks, for which (as we have said) Avicenna writes the same remedies that Paul [uses] for syringi. [These entries] in Avicenna are corrupted, just as perhaps in balciati—or as others write, raciati—another species of saphati. They are, however, as Paul and Alexander explain, pustules protruding above the skin of the head.

Many corrupted names of herbs in Avicenna; Sixth Doubt.

In the second volume of Avicenna, chochium is written for phoca, that is, the sea-calf. Cheiche for caucamo, the same [as] a certain scented gum. Astraficus for asteratticus, that is, the herb inguinaria greater celandine. Baesthe for becium, that is, tussilago coltsfoot. Bilonium for pelium, beblili for peplum, herbs of the same powers. The former, however, [for] garden purslane, the latter [for] rue, [being] similar. Quequero for cenchrus, that is, millet. Scutum for symphitum, that is, the herb consolida comfrey. Tesifie for thapsia, and a thousand other corruptions of Greek words are found, which I think can hardly be understood without the Greek authors who intended to hand down medicine to posterity with knowledge. When even Avicenna, a master of medicine so great in other respects, sometimes blunders in these, such as when he explains tesifie as the gum of wild rue, which is found nowhere. But scutum [he explains as] houseleek, or a species of mandrake seed, according to two opinions, yet he interprets both falsely. Because of such obscurity of names, I do not know what can be more dangerous in the work of medicine, since it happens that from it, not only is one disease cured for another, but also different remedies are exhibited for others. For which reason, Alessandro Benedetti of Verona, a man most dear to us, and Nicolaus Leonicenus of Vicenza could never be praised enough—men of no less genius and learning, who, through their industry, take care to have the entire wisdom of the Greeks, philosophy, oratory, and medicine printed in numerous volumes.

Of Altoim a type of tumor/bubo and the bubo; Doubt VII.

That Avicenna intended in the fourth book, where he writes about altois, to treat of this tumor which arises especially in the groins, will be easily conjectured by anyone who compares the words of Avicenna on altoim and Paul on the bubo. For they are almost the same medicines with which Avicenna treats altoim and Paul the bubo, except that Paul distinguishes the same treatment much more correctly. For since the bubo is twofold, one being that which arises from a primitive cause (to use a word very common among younger doctors) and therefore [is] from blood, not... The text ends abruptly here.