The World of Pharmacy and Pharmacists in Mamluk Cairo

摘要

This is the first book by a young and promising scholar in the field of Arab pharmacology. Dr Leigh Chipman, works on the social and intellectual history of Arab medicine. The book is partly based on the author's dissertation, but in fact incorporates two discrete yet similar research projects. The first deals with one prominent Jewish Cairene pharmacist and his famous book, the second with Arab pharmacists and their role in Mamluk society. This is a superb piece of solid academic research, well written and meticulously scientific. The author asks various important and original research questions and deals with them one by one using a wide range of historical sources and various methodologies. Chipman's book is graced with a handsome cover, carrying a picture of a Judaeo-Arabic fragment she identified in the Taylor-Schechter Genizah Collection at Cambridge University Library. The fragment is from one of the earliest manuscripts of the book in the first part of her study.