Note 12 — 10th-Century Surgical Treatise

The seven Arabic manuscripts are indexed as "Berlin MS. Or. fol. 91," temporarily at Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen, in Germany; "Escorial MS. Arabe No. 876," at Biblioteca del Monasterio de San Lorenzo el Real de El Escorial, in Spain; "Wien MS. Cod. N.F. 476 A.," at Oesterreichische Nationalbibliothek, in Vienna; and "Ali Emiri Arabi No. 2854," "Beșir Ağa Nos. 502 and 503," and "Veliyyudin No. 2491," all at Süleymaniye Umumi Kütüphanesi Müdürlüğü, in Istanbul. Hereinafter these manuscripts are referred to, respectively, as Tüb. MS. 91; Esc. 876; Wien 476 A; Ali 2854; Bes. 502; Bes. 503; and Vel. 2491. The Smithsonian Institution recently obtained a microfilm copy of Bankipore Manuscript No. 17 from the Khuda Bakhsh O. P. Library, Patna (Bihar), India. This manuscript, containing only the 30th treatise of al-Taṣrīf, was copied in 1189; therefore, it is the earliest dated Arabic manuscript of the surgical treatise known to exist. The surgical illustrations therein add weight to the belief that the Arabic manuscripts show more originality in the drawings than do the later copied versions, which often were inaccurate and possibly distorted. About ten other illustrations from the Arabic manuscript in Istanbul indexed as "Topkapi MS. No. 1990" (which contains 215 beautifully illustrated figures) were presented by A. S. Ünver and Hüseyin Usman in an extract titled "Meșhur Arab Cerrahi Elbülkasimi Zehravi ve onun Kitabül Cerrahiyesi," Istanbul, 1935. See also Ünver, Serefeddin Sabuncuoğlu: Kitabül Cerrahiyei Illhaniye, Istanbul, 1939, pp. [5]-7.