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NOTE XXVII. CERTAIN EMINENT PHVSICIANS 151
Al-Kitdbu'l-Hdwi ("Continens ").
. ,This is the largest and most important of the works cf Razi. It is,
moreover, a posthumous work, for after Razi's death Muhammad ibnu'l-*,
'Amid, the Minister of Sultan Ruknu'd-Dawla ibn. Buwayh, bougftt
the materials and notes Wt by the authc? from his sister for a high
price and placed them in the hands of a committee of l?is pupils to be
arranged and edited. It therefore lacked ^the finishing touch 6fthe
Master's hand, which fact, perhaps, accounts for its somewhat inchoate
character and confused arrangement. The original Arabic text has never
be'in published; MSS. are rare and widely scattered, and it is doubtful
if those which exist in the British Museum, the Bodleian, Munich and
the Escorial represent in all more than half of the entire work. The
Latin version,) first published'in 1486, and subsequently in 1500, 1506
and 1509, is rare, and has been accessible to me only in the copy
marked XV. 4. 2 in the Library of King's College, Cambridge; nor do
its contents agree well either with the account of the> original given in
the Fihrist (pp. 299-302) or with the manuscript volumes which I have
**
examined in London and Oxford.
'
'Yhs,* Fihrist (p. 300) and Qifti describe the book as comprising
twelve parts, thus enumerated by the former:
(i) The treatment of disease and of the sick.
(ii) The preservation of health,
(iii) Fractures, dislocations and surgical operations.
(iv) Materia medica and diet.
(v) Compound medicaments.
(vi) The Art of Medicine.
(vii) Apothecarium; colours, tastes and smells of drugs,
(viii) Bodies.
(ix) Weights and measures. >
(x) The anatomical structure and uses of the different members.
(xi)
Natural causes in Medicine. '
(xii) Introduction to the study
of Medicine: medical names and
, first principles of Medicine.