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In the Translator's Workshop: Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Galen's Commentary on the Hippocratic Epidemics and the Transmission of Galenic Medicine to the Islamic World
Abstract
The translation of medical texts, chiefly the prolific oeuvre of the Roman physician Galen, was one of the most important contributions of the Greek-Arabic translation movement to the development of medicine in the medieval Islamic world. Among the more important Galenic works translated into Arabic was his commentary on Hippocrates' Epidemics, an extensive collection of medical case notes. Of the seven books of the Epidemics, Galen considered only the first three and the sixth to be authentic and wrote an extensive commentary on those books. Less than half of it survives in Greek; however, we have an almost complete Arabic translation created in the ninth century. Its author was none other than Hunayn ibn Ishaq, the most accomplished translator of his time and also himself a practising physician. Its importance for the Arabic medical tradition is amply attested in the later medical literature. Throughout the translation, we find remarks by Hunayn himself who talks freely about the quality of his source text, his own interpretation of certain passages and also, where the source was incomplete or problematic, about his attempts to heal or even reconstruct whole chunks of it. Hunayns extremely pragmatic approach to this text tells us a lot about his own interests and methods and also the purposes and practical slant of the Greek-Arabic translation movement as a whole. An analysis of translation samples, Hunayn's notes and related texts lets us take a glimpse into the translator's workshop and helps us answer important questions about the work of the translator, its wider context and the transmission of medical knowledge to the Islamic world. Does Hunayn as a physician approach this text differently than the non-medical texts he translated? How does he deal with the translational and medical problems posed by his sources? How did he view his own role as a translator, his Galenic and Hippocratic sources and the contemporary state of medical practice?
Discipline
Medicine/Health
Geographic Area
All Middle East
Sub Area
7th-13th Centuries