Rare Medical Transcripts Uncovered at the Jewish Theological Seminary

Two Hebrew copies of a historical medical-botanical text which standardized drug names and provided new warnings against drug adulteration to 13th-century doctors and chemists have been uncovered at the library of the Jewish Theological Seminary. The manuscript was located by Dr. Alexander Tobias, Manuscript Cataloguer of the Seminary.

Several weeks ago, the New York Botanical Gardens announced the acquisition of two rare manuscripts of “Circa Instans” (“About the Present”), the historic Latin text. According to the eminent 19th-century bibliographer, Moritz Steinschneider, the Hebrew versions of this landmark text were more complete in their duplication of the original than Latin manuscripts still available.

Dr. Menahem Schmeizer, Seminary librarian, said the Seminary’s two texts may be the only Hebrew ones available in the world. One was transcribed around 1250, about a half a century after the Botanical Gardens’ manuscripts, believed to be the oldest Latin copies. The second, a condensed version entitled “Sefer Ha-Ezer” (“Book of Help”) was transcribed in the 1500’s.

FUNDAMENTAL WORK OF BOTANY

“Circa Instans” is fundamental in the development of modern botany, and had major historic importance in medicine. It was the first major new work of pharmacology in the post-classical world, incorporating both the problems and knowledge acquired in the early Middle Ages from a variety of national influences.

At a time when there was great confusion over the introduction of new drugs, a variety of names from different languages for the same drugs, and considerable practice of adulteration of medicines this manuscript standardized drug names and provided alphabetized description of the then known drugs and specific warnings against the various types of adulteration. At the time “Circa Instans” was written, most drugs were derived from plants, and what later were to be known as the separate disciplines of botany, medicine and pharmacology, was one field of study.

The work was written around 1150 by Matthaeus Platearius, a noted teacher at the School of Salerno, Italy, the first school of medicine in Europe.

The early Hebrew text was acquired by the Seminary in the 1940’s from the collection of Elkan N. Adler, an English lawyer and the son of the former British chief rabbi. It was translated by Solomon Melgueri, in Provence, in southern France. The later condensed version was apparently translated in Italy. The older copy is written partly on vellum and partly on paper, and has 32 leaves, double columns. The condensed version is entirely on paper, 83 leaves, in bold handwriting, which is extremely well-preserved.