State document: T-S NS 306.48

Description

Petition from the Jewish physician Sulaymān b. Mūsā. In Arabic script. He reports that he "was raised among the physicians of the hospital (māristān) in Old Cairo, and he is one of the sons of the physicians who are employed there, and he has attended. . . .” The continuation is missing. He is presumably leading up to a request that he be formally employed at the hospital himself. On recto there is part of a medical notebook dealing with ophthalmology. Recto contains a list of simples used for curing eye complaints and follows roughly the list found in ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā, Tadhkirat al-kaḥḥālīn (ed. Hyderabad 1964, p. 347). Simples mentioned include antimony, sarcocolla, ceruse, acacia, lichen, gum of sal ammoniac, myrtle, melitot, galbanum, onions, borax, lettuce seeds, zinc oxide, and egg white. (Information in part from CUDL.)