AVICENNA, FῙ AL-ʾUMŪR AL-KULLIYYA MIN ʿILM AL-ṬIBB, ED. NAJAFGHOLI HABIBI (HAMADAN, 2018)

That Ibn Sīnā’s “Canon of medicine” figures among the major classics of the history of medicine is doubted by no serious historian of medicine, eastern or western, Islamic or non-Islamic alike. It is therefore all the more surprising that so far no serious critical edition of this text was available. Certainly, a first, very timid step toward a really critical edition (published during the years 1982-1996) was made at the Institute of the History of Medicine and Medical Research (New Delhi), under the direction of Hakeem Abdul Hameed (1908-1999). It compared the four existing editions: Rome 1593; Būlāq (Cairo) 1877; Tehran (lithograph) 1878; and Lucknow 1905. In addition it used (a photocopy of) an ancient manuscript of Aya Sophia, dated 618, i. e. MS Aya Sophia 3686. With this new edition a further important step toward a full critical edition is made. Even if it is obvious that it does not yet present a “critical edition” in the full sense of the word, it has important merits.