Drug Testing, Tested Remedies and Medical-Literary Genres in Medieval Islam

Along with different kinds of theoretical manuals on medicine and pharmacology, medieval Islam also produced other types of writings directly associated to everyday medical experience and therapeutics. Medieval Islamic medical literature also includes collections of clinical records, prescriptions for particular patients, consultations by letter, and medical recipe books, some of them genres also found in the western medical tradition. For the first time, this article addresses specifically the medical-literary genre of medical recipe books in medieval Islam. The analysis of four works from al-Andalus is framed within a general overview of other genres linked to first-hand medical experience and hands-on therapeutics as a context. Drug testing and tested remedies are also discussed in an attempt to provide a comprehensive view of actual medical practice in medieval Islam.