Moses Maimonides on the Causes of Symptoms

By J. O. Leibowitz

The subject of this book is a treatise by Maimonides (1135 - 1204)--Jewish philosopher and at one time physician to the court of Egypt--commonly known as De causis accidentium. The treatise is presented here for the first time in a multilingual critical edition that includes the Hebrew, Arabic and medieval Latin texts as well as commentaries on each of them. The incentive for this publication was the recent discovery of a thirteenth-century Hebrew translation of the treatise, reproduced here in facsimile. Neither the Hebrew nor the Latin texts have previously been published in full. Because the editors have kept in mind the wider issues, this volume is congruent with present-day research on the transmission of ancient knowlege in the Middle Ages. Although his treatise was intended merely to treat specific questions involving a certain patient, Maimonides discusses several medical subjects, such as problems involving the circulatory system, the digestive organs and general dietetics, psychiatry, and specific aspects of physiology. A special feature of the volume is the editors' running commentary, based on the Arabic original as well as on various medieval translations, and designed to clarify some of the obscurities of the text, particularly its medical aspects. The editors suggest that Maimonides may have been familiar with such modern concepts as hemoconcentration and the use of psychotropic drugs. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1974.

• Language: English
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Release date: Nov 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9780520312074

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MOSES MAIMONIDES: ON THE CAUSES OF SYMPTOMS

MOSES MAIMONIDES ON THE CAUSES OF SYMPTOMS

Edited by

J. O. LEIBOWITZ and S. MARCUS

In collaboration with

M. BEIT-ARie, E. D. GOLDSCHMIDT,

F. KLEIN-FRANKE, E. LIEBER, M. PLESSNER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS BERKELEY LOS ANGELES LONDON

University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd. London, England

Copyright (c) 1974, by The Regents of the University of California

ISBN 0-520-02224-6

LC 71-187873

Printed in the United States of America

CONTENTS 1

CONTENTS 1

PREFACE

INTRODUCTION

THE MEDICAL CONTENTS OF THE TREATISE

A PALAEOGRAPHIC DESCRIPTION OF THE JERUSALEM HEBREW MANUSCRIPT

The 13th Century Hebrew Translation of the Arabic Text, reproduced in facsimile with annotations and corrections

The English Translation from the Arabic Original, with a Running Commentary

THE EXTANT ARABIC MANUSCRIPTS

THE ARABIC TEXT

THE MEDIEVAL LATIN TRANSLATIONS

THE HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED PART OF THE LATIN TEXT

THE MATERIA MEDICA OF THE TREATISE ON THE CAUSES OF SYMPTOMS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

PREFACE

EARLY in my career I became interested in the present treatise by Maimonides. At my suggestion, a beautiful reproduction of the Latin incunable of Maimonides’ Regimen was published by my late friend Dr. Herbert Grossberger (Heidelberg, 1931). Most intriguing was the final section, later called De causis accidentium, which the early Florentine printer had appended to the Regimen in a fragmentary way. Only a few pages of the medieval Hebrew translations of this section were known to scholars.

The situation changed when an almost complete thirteenth century manuscript of a Hebrew translation was discovered in 1962. A preliminary study of this text was carried out by Beverly A. Spirt (now Mrs. Marmor), under my supervision and with the help of Shlomo Marcus. This resulted in a thesis for the degree of Bachelor of Arts at Harvard (1967), which bears the title A preliminary study of the Hebrew text of a Medical Treatise by Maimonides. It has been extensively used during the preparation of this volume, and I am indebted to Beverly Marmor for this contribution.

The next acknowledgments are to my regular collaborators. I am much indebted to Shlomo Marcus, who has given much of his time and of his vast knowledge to the achievement of our goal. Besides providing a full catalogue of materia medica, he acted as coordinator of our team and identified himself with each phase and facet of the project. A learned librarian and multilingual, he has succeeded in unearthing valuable information from little-known sources, including manuscripts. For the past few years we have had the privilege of having Elinor Lieber on our staff. I am much indebted to her for tracing sources, chiefly in Galenic writings, in order to explain certain passages in our treatise. She helped us in elucidating the medical implications of the texts, in the production and editing of the essays, commentaries and translations, and graciously watched over the English style throughout the volume.

Among the guest contributors to this edition I would like to express my thanks to Professor Martin Plessner for his advice on Arabic and general matters. Professor Plessner’s participation in our weekly staff conferences over the years was always very stimulating, and I appreciated his readiness to answer our questions. He kindly helped us to avoid pitfalls, when some of our tentative conjectures did not withstand the criterion of sound philological insight. A renowned scholar in his field, he has provided an essay on the Arabic manuscripts of our treatise. During some of our conferences we also had the benefit of advice from David Tene, an expert in medieval Hebrew. Early in our work, Malachi Beit-Arie was our adviser on the palaeographic aspects of the Hebrew manuscript. I thank him for this and for his concise and revealing essay. Felix Klein-Franke undertook the pioneering task of preparing a critical edition of that part of the Latin manuscripts which is lacking in the incunable and the sixteenth century printed versions; we much appreciate his work on this as well as his introductory essay. The writer is a Latinist as well as an Arabic scholar; a combination of qualities befitting the synthetic character of this volume. The late Dr. Ernst Daniel Goldschmidt was kind enough to expand the abbreviations in the incunable of the Latin translation of the treatise.

I would also like to acknowledge the valuable help of the following persons and institutions: The National and University Library, Jerusalem for permission to reproduce the Hebrew text, and its staff members for their assistance; the American Philosophical Society for permission to reproduce the English translation of the treatise; Dr. Ariel Bar-Sela for his kind advice and for the photostat of the manuscript of an early Latin translation; Ilay Ilan for his advice on Arabic philology; Professor Moshe Prywes, chief editor of the Israel Journal of Medical Sciences, for his inspiration; Mrs. Shula Toledano, manager of the Journal, for her gracious help in making the publication of this volume possible; Mr. Ernst Jacob for seeing the book through the press; and Dr. David V. Zaitchek for his advice on plant identification.

The list of thanks would be incomplete should we forget Harry Friedenwald of Baltimore, who died in 1950. By the bequest of his collection to the Hebrew University Library, Dr. Friedenwald laid the foundations of medico-historical activity at this university. Indeed, most of our work was carried out in the Friedenwald Collection room.

Last but not least, I wish to express my thanks to the National Library of Medicine for the grant which has made possible the appearance of this volume. The policy followed by this library calls to mind the somewhat similar activity of the Royal Society of London in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when the Society demonstrated its humanitarian and universal outlook by generously sponsoring the publication of scholarly editions of works of foreign authors.

J. O. LEIBOWITZ

Hebrew University-Hadassah Medical School Jerusalem, Israel

Prof. M. Plessner died on November 27, 1973. after this volume was completed in press.

INTRODUCTION

J. O. LEIBOWITZ

THE INCENTIVE for the present work was the chance discovery in the early 1960s of a hitherto unknown Hebrew translation of this treatise of Maimonides, when a collection of 115 Hebrew manuscripts was acquired from the estate of R. Hayyim Bekor ha-Levi by the Jewish National and University Library of Jerusalem. Among these was a bound volume of four medical works by Maimonides, Jerusalem 8° 3941, including the late thirteenth-century manuscript which is reproduced and edited in this volume (see Beit-Arie, 1962-1963).

In general, the early Hebrew and Latin translations of the medical works of Maimonides greatly help toward the understanding of the original Arabic texts. However, previous editors and translators of this treatise have only been able to compare the Arabic text with fragments of the Hebrew manuscripts of the work (Berlin 232, fols. 116v to 119r, now kept in Tubingen, and Munich 280, fol. 134). Our present manuscript is far more extensive, although it lacks a short passage in the middle and a second following page 154v, and the entire last chapter is missing, so that it ends abruptly.

Stimulated by the discovery of this Hebrew version, we realized that a more detailed study of the contents would be rewarding. This was achieved with the cooperation of experts in the fields of Arabic, Hebrew, and Latin philology. Their assistance was required not only on account of the linguistic problems involved, but also for the reproduction of our Hebrew text and of a Latin version of the last part of the work, which comprises more than half of the entire treatise. This part of the Latin text, from Chapter 19 onward, is reproduced here, because it is missing in the printed Latin editions of the author’s Regimen of Health, to all of which our treatise was appended (Florence, c. 1477; Pavia, 1501; Venice, 1514 and 1521; Augsburg, 1518; and Lyons, 1535).

Although De causis accidentium is associated with the Regimen in the Latin editions, there is no doubt that these were entirely separate treatises. In his introduction to the Regimen, Maimonides states that this work will be divided into four chapters. The fourth chapter ends with a phrase indicating that the work is now concluded: This is the measure of what the servant has now presented for the needs of our Master, may God perpetuate his dominion for him unto all times. Moreover, in the introductory phrase of De causis accidentium, Maimonides gives his reasons for addressing a second treatise to the same Sultan al-Afdal. However, because of the identity of the addressee and the relative brevity of the second work, the two treatises were usually printed together.

The omission in the printed versions of some seven-tenths of the text can possibly be attributed to the example of the first printed edition, that of Florence, c. 1477, apud sanctum Iacobum de Ripolis. The story of the printing press at this convent may cast some light on the subject (see Haebler, 1924, p. 157). Its beginnings were very modest. The work was carried out by nuns under the supervision of senior monks, who called on Johannes Petri, a German professional printer, to run the press. It is to be noted that the unprinted part of the manuscript starts