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Historical Bibliography Updated: March 18, 2020

Liber fundamentorum pharmacologiae. Auctore Abu Mansur Mowafik ben Ali al Herui. Epitome codicis manuscripti persici Bibl. caes. reg. Vienn. inediti. Primus Latio donavit Romeo Seligmann. 2 vols.

Publication Details

Vienna: Antonius Nob. de Schmid, 1830 CE–1833 CE.

The most important early Persian pharmacological work, first published in print in Latin translation. Muvaffak flourished in Herat (current Afghanistan), under the Samanid prince Mansur I ibn Nuh, who ruled from 961 to 976. He was apparently the first to think of compiling a treatise on materia medica in Persian; to obtain the information he travelled extensively in Persia and India. Between 968 and 977 CE he wrote the Book of the Remedies (Kitab al-abnyia 'an Haqa'iq al-adwiya), the oldest prose work in modern Persian. It deals with 585 remedies (of which 466 are derived from plants, 75 from minerals, 44 from animals), classified into four groups according to their action. The above epitome was taken from a MS of 1055 CE, one of the oldest surviving texts in Persian. Digital facsimile from Google Books at this link. A German version appeared in 1893 under the direction of R. Robert.

Catalog MetadataReference Information
Entry Number#1788
Permanent Linkhttps://staging.historyofmedicine.com/entry/1842
Author Bio LinkWikipedia ↗
External URLliber-fundamentorum-pharmacologiae-primus-latio-donavit-r-seligmann-2-pts

Geographic Context

Publication place: Vienna