Among modern authorities on Arabian medicine, the opinion has been
widely held that the position of Maimonides as a medical writer must
depend mainly upon an unpublished work from his hand, known as the
_Tractatus de Causis et Indiciis Morborum_.[345] It is here sought
to demonstrate that the Bodleian MS. (Marsh 379), hitherto regarded
as containing this work, is in reality by another author, while the
Paris MS. (Bibliothèque Nationale, Ancien Fonds 411),[346] the only
other alleged copy of the _Tractatus de Causis et Indiciis Morborum_,
contains in fact no such work. Moreover, evidence will be adduced
showing that it is not probable that Maimonides composed a treatise of
this scope.
For their information concerning the _Tractatus_, the modern
bibliographers evidently rely entirely on entries in the catalogues of
the respective libraries. The 1739 Catalogue of Arabic and Hebrew MSS.
in the Bibliothèque Nationale contains the following entry:[347] ‘Codex
bombycinus, Aleppo in bibliothecam Colbertinam anno 1673 illatus, quo
continetur R. Mosis Maemonidae de morborum causis et illorum curatione
tractatus, Arabice, charactere Hebraico.’ Careful examination of
the manuscript disclosed the fact that it contained no fewer than
four works of Maimonides, viz. on Poisons,[348] on Asthma,[349] the
_Tractatus de Regimine Sanitatis_,[350] and the _Tractatus de Morbo
Regis Aegypti_,[351] all bound together in confusion.[352] All these
are known to be by Maimonides, and there is nothing besides them in the
volume.
There has always been a good deal of confusion about the works _de
Regimine Sanitatis_ and _de Morbo Regis Aegypti_. The former is
variously known as _de Regimine Sanitatis, de Cibo et Alimento, de
Dietetica_, ‘the letter to the Sultan’, or as ‘the Consultation
concerning (the Sultan) Al Afḍal’.[353] The latter also has a number
of titles, such as _de Causis Accidentium,[354] de Morborum Causis et
Curatione_, and _Responsum ad Regem Raqqa_, in addition to its title
of _de Morbo Regis Aegypti_. In 1514, in Venice the two treatises were
printed together in Latin as one work.[355]
Leclerc[356] has made confusion worse confounded by saying that ‘ce
que l’on a désigné sous les titres, _De Morbo Regis Aegypti, De Causis
Accidentium, De Causis et Indiciis Morborum, De Cibo et Alimento_,
ne sont autre chose que tout ou partie du même ouvrage’.[357] No
doubt he was led into making this statement partly by the fact that
Wüstenfeld[358] gives the title of _de Causis et Indiciis Morborum_
both to the Bibliothèque Nationale MS. (which Leclerc knew as _de
Causis Accidentium_) and to the Bodley MS.
The entry concerning the latter in Uri’s Bodleian Catalogue of
1787[359] reads as follows:
‘Codex bombycinus, anno Hegirae 765, Christi 1363 exaratus, folia
116 implens. Comprehendit succinctum de omnium corporis humani
morborum causis, signis et remediis tractatum ab Ibn Hobaish
Hierosolymitano ex Hebraica lingua in Arabicam conversum, cui
sectiones sex supra centum sunt. Initium fit a morbis capitis;
finis in elephantiasi. Composuit Musa Ben Maimun Alcortubi,
Israelita. [Marsh 379.]’