Machine summary:
MIRZA LA PROFESSION DE FOi D'lBN BATTA (Kitab al-Shat h wa'l-Ibana 'ala Usul al• Surma wa'l-Dayana) by Ibn Batta al-'Ukbari, Arabic text (93 pages) edited by Henri Laoust, with an Introduction (pages 145) and transla tion ( 172 pages) in French, published by the Institut Francais de Damas, 1958; size royal octavo, uncut.
Thus although the system practised by the Arabs, and following them by other Muslim peoples, continues to be designated as "Yunani', it should not be supposed that it is a mere Arabicised version, an exact replica, of the old Greek system, Muslim physicians like al-Razi, Ibn-Sina and al-Zahravvi did a valuable lot of original work, enriching the older system by the introduction of a wide range of new materia medica, improved methods of diagnosis and treatment, medicinal as well as surgical, and novel theories about the causes of different diseases and the most effective wavs of their prevention, The study of Arabic and Persian literature on medicine, therefore, which has attracted the attention of modern writers onlv in recent times, presents a wide and fertile field of research.
The main work has been split up into eight chapters of which the first three deal with ~he historv of Arabian medicine from the earliest times 'upto the end of the Abbasid period and the 4th with its development in India, while the 5th and 6th are devoted rnainlv to 'Ali b.