Royal Provenance

Bertherand, E[mile]-L[ouis]. Médecine et hygiène des Arabes. Études sur l'exercice de la médecine et de la chirurgie chez les musulmans de l'Algérie, leurs connaissances en anatomie, histoire naturelle, pharmacie, médicine légale etc. leurs conditions climatériques générales, leurs pratiques hygiéniques publiques et privées, leurs maladies, leurs traitements les plus usités, précédées de Considérations sur l'état général de la Médicine chez les principales nations Mahométans.

€ 5.000,00

First edition of this widely received study of medical and sanitary standards in the Arabic countries. The principal work of Bertherand (1821-90), a French physician and medical-legal expert active in Algeria, written in the context of a discussion over assimilation within the French colonial empire. In contrast to Montesquieu's traditional theory, which explained cultural differences with the climatic zones of their origin, Bertherand attributed them to moral conditions which, in the case of contemporary medicine in the Muslim countries, he associated directly with Islam. His suggestions for colonial politics are informed by the racist and eugenic theories of his age (cf. Ellen Amster [2014], Medicine and the Saints: Science, Islam, and the Colonial Encounter in Morocco, p. 59ff.).

Light browning and occasional foxing as common. A splendidly bound copy from the library of Muhammad II ibn al-Husayn (1811-1859), the Bey of Tunis. The Husainid dynasty ruled the Beylik of Tunis from 1705 until 1957.