| This book is the result of a doctoral study carried out by a pharmacist
who is also an Arabic scholar, and is published in the Sir Henry Wellcome
Asian Series. It examines the use of opium and other poppies by physicians
in ninth century Baghdad, which at that time was the foremost medical
centre in the world.
The book opens with an account of early Islamic knowledge of the use
of opium by the Greeks and Romans and it examines in detail entries on
opium in the Arabic version of Diascorides’ ‘Materia medica’.
The core of the book examines the extent to which opium was used in the
written works of six selected physicians. These works include the medical
formularies of al-Kindi and Sabur, and al-Razi’s ‘Liber Continens’.
The text runs to 181 pages. The remainder of the book consists of extensive
appendices, listing the material medica of the time, glossaries of ailments,
conditions and weights and measures. However, the greater part of the
appendix is devoted to Arab texts, with extracts from Diascorides’ ‘Materia
medica’ and from all six of the medical texts considered.
The book is written in a clear and accessible style and the material
is well-presented, being illuminated with biographical details on all
the key figures, a wealth of background information and many supporting
tables and diagrams.
It is, however, a scholarly work that will be of interest mainly to academic
researchers and others with a particular passion for the
subject.
Stuart Anderson (senior lecturer at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine, and immediate past president of the British Society for the History
of Pharmacy) |
The
Pharmaceutical Journal