11
Pharmacopoeias for the Hospital
and the ShopAl-Dustur al-bimaristani and Minhaj al-dukkanLeigh N. ChipmanTwo thirteenth-century works, one aimed at hospital use and the other at
private pharmacies, constitute the basis of our study. We will show that
the differences between them derive not only from the different audi-
ences but also from the fact that one was authored by a physician and the
other by pharmacists—that is, by members of the target audiences. We
will also discuss the Jewish identity of the authors and its relevance for
their writings.
Abu ’l-Fadl Dawud b. Sulayman Ibn Abi ’l-Bayan al-Isra’ili (d. 634/1236)
was a pupil of Ibn Jumay ̔, Saladin’s court physician. Himself physician to
Saladin’s successor, al- ̔Adil, and the teacher of the medical biographer
Ibn Abi Usaybi ̔a, Ibn Abi ’l-Bayan was director of the Nasiri hospital in
Cairo, and he composed his famous al-Dustur al-bimaristani fi ’l-adwiya
al-murakkaba (The Hospital Rule with Regard to Compound Drugs) for
use there.^1 This work was published by Sbath in two essentially identical
versions,^2 and consists of an introduction and twelve chapters that deal
with the various kinds of compound drugs in use during the late twelfth
and early thirteenth centuries.
Al-Dustur al-bimaristani forms part of the Arabic tradition of hospital
dispensatories. Ibn Abi ’l-Bayan’s most prominent predecessors were Sa-
bur b. Sahl (d. 255/869)^3 and Ibn al-Tilmidh (d. 560/1165),^4 both of whom
were Christians working in Baghdad. Al-Dustur al-bimaristani has re -
mained well known to the traditional practitioners of the Middle East,