Abridgement of Galen’s celebrated commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates

Galen, Hippocrates, Ibn Ishaq Hunayn (transl.). Mokhtassar Sharh Jalinus li-Fusul Abuqrat [Abridgement of Galen’s Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates].

€ 18,000.00

A rare witness to the tradition of medical abridgements (mukhtasar), offering a condensed version of Galen’s celebrated commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates. Preserving the first four treatises (maqalat), the text distills the authoritative Arabic transmission produced by Hunayn ibn Ishaq and his circle, omitting extended digressions while retaining the essential doctrines of medical thought.

Alongside reflections on regimen, fullness, purgation, the transformation of humors, and the characteristic vulnerabilities of different ages, the commentary also devotes careful attention to the recognition of critical symptoms and the signs of approaching death (alamat al-mawt). These discussions reveal how ancient physicians were trained to read the body’s signals not only to guide treatment but also to anticipate crisis and mortality with precision. Passages on the corpulence of athletes, the formation of suppuration, or the frailty of maturity illustrate Galen’s constant balancing of natural strength against excess, while titles concerned with the signs of the end of life end remind us of the pragmatic urgency of the Hippocratic-Galenic tradition.

The Aphorisms of Hippocrates (ca. 460-370 BCE), accompanied by Galen’s interpretation (129 - ca. 216 CE), were foundational texts in Greco-Arabic medicine. Their ninth-century transmission into Arabic ensured their central role in Islamic medical education, where they remained indispensable manuals of theory and practice for centuries. The present manuscript, in its epitomised form, vividly illustrates how this tradition was reshaped within the Ottoman period to serve the needs of students and practitioners, preserving the essence of classical medicine in a concise, utilitarian handbook.