Medecine et environnement dans l’Alexandrie medievale
Edition et traduction de la Risala fi tab' al-Iskandariyya d'Ibn Gumay' al-Isra'ili (m. 594/1198)
by Jean-Charles Ducene
Paperback (Published)
(December 2025)
ISBN: 9782724711257
Price: $20.00
On back order
Although Alexandria, thanks to its port, played a leading role throughout the Middle Ages in opening up Egypt to the Mediterranean, few monographs by Egyptian authors have been devoted to it. Besides the Kitab al-ilmam by al-Nuwayri al-Iskandarani (fl. 770/1360), there is this Epistle on the Nature of Alexandria by the Jewish physician Hibat Allah ibn Gumay’ (d. 594/1198), who worked in Cairo in Saladin’s entourage. Using the criteria of Hippocratic medicine as his paradigms, and after a six-month stay in the city, the author describes its health situation, specifying its topography and its exposure to the natural elements. He examines the diet and lifestyle of the city’s inhabitants in the 6th/12th century, giving an overview of the food and drink they consumed and highlighting the ways in which this diet was or was not adapted to its environment, since, according to medieval medicine, the mismatch between climate and diet was the cause of humoral imbalances, which were a source of disease. This rich description concludes with dietary and therapeutic recommendations in line with the medical science of the time. A rare glimpse into life in medieval Alexandria, this book also offers an insight into the environmental applications of Hippocratic medicine.
- By (author) Jean-Charles Ducene
Other Titles in this Series
Primordial History, Print Capitalism, and Egyptology in Nineteenth-Century Cairo
Mustafa Salama al-Naggari's. The Garden of Ismail's Praise
Volume 35
Similar Books
Archaeological Discoveries at the Temple of Ramesses II in Abydos
Vol. 2: Old Kingdom Wall, Papyri, Ostraca, and Leather Remains
Ancient Egypt in 50 Discoveries
Highlights from the first century of the Egypt Exploration Society
Volume 8
Animal Magnetism in Motion / Le magnetisme animal en mouvement
Reconfigurations and Circulations, 1776-1848 / Reconfigurations et circulations, 1776-1848
Archaeological Discoveries at the Temple of Ramesses II in Abydos
Vol. 1: Magazines, Animal Burials, and Miscellanea
Current Research in Egyptology 2024
Proceedings of the Twenty-Fourth Annual Symposium, Jointly Organised by the University of Liverpool, Swansea University, University of Birmingham, University of Oxford, and University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2–6 September 2024
From Egypt to the Levant and Beyond
African Individuals and Groupsain Cuneiform Texts from the Late Bronze Age
Volume 133
Kom al-Ahmer — Kom Wasit III
The Archaeology of Two Ptolemaic Districts in the Western Nile Delta, Egypt
Language, Semantics, and Cognition in Ancient Egypt and Beyond
Proceedings of the International Conference, Yale University, April 16-18, 2021
Volume 14
Mortals, Deities and Divine Symbols: Rethinking Ancient Images from the Levant to Mesopotamia
Studies Offered to Tallay Ornan
