for hundreds of years , especially during the rule of the fimids , ayybids and mamlks over egypt , the jewish community in the country , mainly in cairo and alexandria , existed as one of the most important centres of jewry in the world . the community maintained extensive internal and international ties and engaged in widespread social , economic and religious activity . the jews of fus  ( old cairo ) worshipped in a few synagogues , one of which was named the this community had used the same building as their religious centre for almost a millennium , and during that time assigned one of the upper rooms as a genizah , or repository for discarded handwritten material . as prescribed by jewish religious custom observed in all jewish communities around the world since early times , sacred books no longer in use were to be either deposited in a genizah or buried . the community in fus  made use mainly of the first option , and expanded it in such a way that almost every piece of writing , whether secular or religious , which passed through the hands of its members was consigned to the genizah . fortunately enough , due to the dry climate of egypt , vast quantities of these manuscripts were preserved . 
  during the nineteenth century the fragments slowly found their way into the hands of private collectors , and soon different academic institutes and libraries were assembling their own collections . the genizah documents touch on almost all social , cultural and economic aspects of life , including medicine , in medieval mediterranean communities . the importance of their discovery was further highlighted by the fact that jews constituted one of egypt s significant minorities . the community not only mirrored mediterranean society as a whole but was also famed for its medical heritage and its learned physicians . the potential of the genizah collection for the study of medical issues has already been noted by several scholars . 
  however , little in - depth research seems to have been conducted to explore actual medieval medical practices . the approximately 1800 medical documents extracted so far in the taylor  schechter ( t  s ) genizah collection in the cambridge university library , 
  comprising  in situ fossils of medical knowledge , 
  provide a direct insight into medieval medical theory and practice , mainly from the eleventh to the thirteenth century , and reveal a unique potential for resurrecting lost knowledge . 
  in 2003 a new interdisciplinary project was launched in cambridge dealing with medical issues in the lives of the people portrayed in the genizah manuscripts . a team of scholars from various fields , including historians , medical historians , linguists and biologists , are now at work identifying , categorising , studying , editing and publishing papers on the numerous fragments concerned with medicine in the genizah collections . as a founder of that team , i have studied three genizah collections in the uk for my research on medieval medicine in egypt and the mediterranean region : the t  s genizah collection ; 
  the john rylands cairo genizah collection ; 
  and the mosseri collection . a few genres of medical fragments were defined such as books , 
  prescriptions , 
  lists of drugs and correspondence . this article will focus on medical notebooks that form an intermediate genre between books and prescriptions since they do not easily fit into any of the fragment categories described above . most of the notebooks , which consist of a few dozen fragments identified in the cairo genizah , create the opportunity to study another aspect of medieval medicine . through my study and analysis of the medical fragments from the cairo genizah , a methodology was gradually devised for distinguishing between the various kinds of information derived from them and for differentiating between theoretical and practical medical knowledge . a. theoretical knowledge of medicine is purported to be mainly contained in general medical books which provide information regarding the basics in medicine and pharmacology . theoretical medical knowledge can be defined as information and medical expertise transmitted in writing by experienced scholars , mainly in medicine and pharmacology , whose main objective was that of teaching and directing medical students and of safeguarding the medical knowledge that had been accumulated , developed or practised by them for future reference . jones , in his research on medieval english medical books , says that :  academic medical books are admirably suited to teaching and learning , but not to the problems faced by our medical practitioner when treating patients. 
  to date , about 1360 fragments of medical books have been identified in the t  s collections and dozens in each of the other collections mentioned above . these books were copied or translated from works written by classical or medieval physicians and pharmacologists . most of the books are written in arabic ( 740 ) , fewer in judaeo - arabic ( 470 ) 
  and the rest in hebrew ( 150 ) . about sixty titles of medical books have been identified so far : thirty - five titles by isaacs , 
  about fifteen more titles by my cambridge team , 
  another dozen of titles in other genizah collections around the world and the work of identification is still an ongoing process . of the titles already identified , roughly one third of the books were written by classical authorities such as galen and hippocrates and another third were written by muslim writers such as sbr ibn sahl ( ninth century ) , 
  ibn sn ( tenth  eleventh century ) , al - rz , ibn al - bayr ( thirteenth century ) and al ibn isa ( tenth  eleventh century ) . the rest were written by jewish physicians , members of the cairo jewish community , such as khin al-ar al - isrl ( a thirteenth century jewish physician active in egypt ) , 
  dawd ibn ab al - bayn ( a twelfth  thirteenth century karaite physician active in cairo ; see figure  1 ) 
  and maimonides ( twelfth century ) . 
  figure  1:page of a medical book : dawd ibn abi al - bayn s al - dustr al - bmristn ( t  s ns 297.56 ) page of a medical book : dawd ibn abi al - bayn s al - dustr al - bmristn ( t  s ns 297.56 ) . further titles of medical books used by members of the medieval jewish community of cairo can be found in the lists that record the books owned by medical practitioners or private persons and that had subsequently been sold after their death . a few dozen of such lists , all written in judaeo - arabic , include information on medical books and are being currently studied . one special and unique list of books that belonged to a local jewish physician has been published . medical books include subjects such as physiology , methods of diagnosis , healing doctrines and so on . they also include suggested recipes for the treatment of various diseases and ailments and information regarding medicinal substances , the quality and uses of which were accredited to known practitioners . i would like to argue that the medical books identified as such in the cairo genizah belong to the category of theoretical medical literature . the study of this medical literature can teach us about the quantities , qualities and level of medical knowledge that was available to the medical students and practitioners of that time or , in other words , could be termed as their  intellectual medical workshop. according to jones , medieval books , especially in england and europe , were usually large and lengthy tomes , expensive to buy and not very portable . they could not be used for quick reference purposes because it would be difficult to access the required information , 
  since most of the information about medication and ailments was often scattered in large tomes , for example in ibn sn ( avicenna ) s canon . 
  from the methodological point of view , and according to my experience , medical books in general are distinguishable from the medical fragments found in the genizah by certain unique features : the text in the medical books is usually longer than in prescriptions , letters and notebooks;in most cases the page layout is nicely done , the text is well set out and written in a professional style in a clear and fine handwriting , the number of lines is fixed , and the margins are straight;the text is written on both sides of the paper and occasionally on bi - folium;all fragments that are pages of the same book are of the same size;the text is written by one hand and in one language;the text is usually written in the same colour ink ( apart from important words or headings written in some cases in other colours);occasionally , a catchword 
  is presented at the bottom of each page;the text is organised in book form , with volume , chapter and section headings . the text in the medical books is usually longer than in prescriptions , letters and notebooks ; in most cases the page layout is nicely done , the text is well set out and written in a professional style in a clear and fine handwriting , the number of lines is fixed , and the margins are straight ; the text is written on both sides of the paper and occasionally on bi - folium ; all fragments that are pages of the same book are of the same size ; the text is written by one hand and in one language ; the text is usually written in the same colour ink ( apart from important words or headings written in some cases in other colours ) ; occasionally , a catchword 
  is presented at the bottom of each page ; the text is organised in book form , with volume , chapter and section headings . clinically useful medical knowledge is commonly found in prescriptions , lists of drugs and private correspondence written by medical practitioners such as physicians and pharmacists as part of their daily work . such documents , mainly prescriptions , record their actual work and consequently can be considered an important element of medical knowledge in its practical form . s genizah collection , of which thirty were more or less complete : 
  eighty - three written in arabic ( see for example figure  2 ) , fifty - six in judaeo - arabic , 
  one in judaeo - persian and one in hebrew . only a few prescriptions were copied identically , others contained changes derived from famous books such as minhj al - dukkn 

  or al - dustr al - bmristn . one special prescription written for a dozen patients was also discussed in a separate publication . a unique aspect of the information that emerges from the prescriptions is their originality . unlike the information derived from books which is usually copied from classical or contemporary medical sources , the prescriptions are clear - cut primary evidence for the medicinal substances actually in use , these prescriptions can therefore be considered as solid evidence of the use of these substances for medicinal purposes and of medical knowledge in its practical form . 
  the features which enabled us to identify genizah fragments as prescriptions prescriptions can also teach us about the prevailing diseases and their symptoms that were actually suffered by members of the community . prescriptions are rarely preserved since they lose their importance the moment they are used ; finding such documents in the genizah can be described as the  survival of ephemeral documents. it is a rare opportunity for historians of medicine to be able to read and analyse records of the immediate interaction between the physicians who wrote out the prescriptions and their patients who presumably took the prescriptions to apothecaries for the purchase or preparation of the formula . they come about as close to the ipsissima verba of medieval physicians as we are likely to get . it is a reflection of the medical reality that actually existed , which at times corresponds with the information found in books . previous research in the history of medicine in the genizah clearly show that the practical inventory of materia medica was smaller ( 278 ) than the theoretical inventory ( 414 ) , which was based on the books that physicians possessed . in other words , the genizah allows us for the first time to quantify the difference between the practical and theoretical inventories which comes to 136 simple drugs ( 33% ) . presented below is a plethora of genizah fragments consisting of medical notebooks that , thanks to the quantity of the documents , their originality and the historical knowledge , comprise a unique source of historical data from which scholars can learn and better understand the way medieval arab medical knowledge was transferred from theory to practice and vice versa . an attempt will therefore be made here to elucidate the following questions that will allow us to place the documents within the context of this medieval community and of mediterranean society in general during that particular period : who wrote the medical notebooks found in the cairo genizah , for what purpose and what was their language of preference?where did the recipes in the notebooks originate from?what kind of medical knowledge was recorded in the medical notebooks and what were the main medical topics that were of concern to them ? who wrote the medical notebooks found in the cairo genizah , for what purpose and what was their language of preference ? where did the recipes in the notebooks originate from ? what kind of medical knowledge was recorded in the medical notebooks and what were the main medical topics that were of concern to them ? sixty - one medical notebooks were identified : fifty in the t  s genizah collection , 
  nine in the mosseri collection , 
  and two in the john rylands university library in manchester . this is roughly 3% out of about 2040 medical fragments that are found in these collections . a notebook in the modern sense is a booklet of plain paper used for writing notes . private notebook of mithridates found by pompey which included a prescription for the famous antidote against poisoning . 
  in early islamic times the word daftar 

  seems to have been used to denote the codex form of a book or booklet , as opposed to rolls and loose sheets . with the development of elaborate bureaucratic organisations , the keeping of daftars became a task calling for special skills and knowledge and consequently daftars of many different varieties began to emerge . 
  very little is written about notebooks in the arabic scholarly tradition in contrast with the vast literature dealing with books . gunther mentions that , as part of the oral and written transmission of knowledge , teachers in early islam based their lectures and seminars on   collections  of data and  lecture scripts that were organised in notebook form . 
  as an example of this , he suggests that ab l - faraj al-isfahn ( tenth century ) , when writing his book maqtil at - alibn [ the killing of the talibids ] , 
  used notebooks that al - thaqaf ( tenth century ) had written . similarly , ab l - faraj al - isfahn sometimes quotes at length from al - nawfal ( ninth century ) ; according to gunther these passages may have been drawn from his teacher s works or even from the notebooks he prepared when he was a student . books when transmitting information :  like other students and scholars , al - abar kept his notebooks and occasionally made a reference to them. 
  another case is ab ayyn al - tawd ( tenth century ) , who  burned his books at the end of his life  . according to rosenthal these include unpublished manuscripts , such as notebooks and drafts . boffey for example described such books as  a repository of practical information of more or less domestic kinds  recipes and remedies and instructions on matters such as dyeing , fishing  . a similar genre for such books was known in the west and termed by several scholars as commonplace books. some of these fifteenth - century manuscripts in england were studied , and according to jones the way that some of them were compiled  throws a great deal of light on the integration of practical experience  with the fruits of his own reading of medical texts. 
  in europe , commonplace books were used by renaissance scholars in a similar way for collating and preserving poems written by a large number of poets . in most cases , neither the owners nor the poets names were recorded . according to thomas , such commonplace books were dynamic in character and always receptive to a new poem or the improvement of an existing one . he also states that these ,  are about memory  like a record of what commonplace books in the renaissance were used as a  humanistic method of reading and storing information. the method , similar to that of our medical notebooks , was to select passages of interest , dialectical arguments , or factual information , and copy them for later use . blair also asserts that the method was learnt from the classical science of rhetoric and had a similar use in medieval times when it also served , as  in the case of medical handbooks , to record  recipes compiled for easy access. 
  schiffman adds that quite often separate notebooks record a wide range of realia or interesting bits of general information sorted under appropriate subject headings according to the topics and themes addressed. 
  another genre of european medieval manuscripts was termed  booklet. the booklet was described as a  self contained unit  originated as a small but structurally independent production containing a single work or a number of short works. 
  according to robinson the  booklet was a third type of manuscript unit : the first type being the quire , which was a gathering of conjoint leaves secured one within the other by sewing them together , and the second being the  pecia , which can be found in european university manuscripts . a unique genre of medical handbook named tabula medicine was in use from the fourteenth century in england . this was a lengthy latin medical text organised alphabetically by headings , and space was left after each entry for expansion and addition by subsequent generations of practitioners and users of the manuscript . another medieval use or genre of notebooks was identified and described by bos and mensching who recorded dozens of medical glossaries ( synonyms of medicinal substances and terms ) written in hebrew , judaeo - arabic , persian , ladino , yiddish and other languages . interestingly enough , we found only one such glossary in the uk genizah collections . thus , throughout history , all of the various genres of notebooks and their contents , including prescriptions , seem to have been intended for personal use ; they are usually shorter than books , untidy and often written in a barely legible scrawl . in examining the medical notebooks discovered in the genizah we find evidence of unique features that distinguish them both from other medical books and practical prescriptions : the text in notebooks is actually longer than in prescriptions and contains a few or many recipes;the external dimension is on average smaller than that of the medical books ; in many cases , parts of the fragments are written in a different handwriting , 
  sometimes in different kinds of ink;the recipes in the notebooks have names and do not usually have blessings ( benedictions ) , which is similar to what is found in books but unlike practical prescriptions ; 
 the absence of blessings indicates that the recipes in notebooks were written in order to record the recipes and not to instruct the pharmacists how to prepare the formulae and use them for treating patients on the spot;occasionally the overleaf is blank , 
  and sometimes the verso is inverse to the recto ( the  top of one side is the  bottom of the other ) ; 
  in other cases the content of the verso differs completely from the recto 
  even when they both deal with medicine ( for example , in one case , 
  an aramaic ketuba appears on the back of the fragment ; the common practice of recycling ( secondary use ) of writing materials is evident in this instance);sometimes the content on one side is divided into two to four columns , 
  in one case the recipes were crossed out ; 
 in most cases , the text is written in a vulgar style and is scrawled , 
  while the line arrangement is usually sporadic and unfixed , with margins of various sizes , similar to prescriptions and different from the books . the text in notebooks is actually longer than in prescriptions and contains a few or many recipes ; the external dimension is on average smaller than that of the medical books ; in many cases , parts of the fragments are written in a different handwriting , 
  sometimes in different kinds of ink ; the recipes in the notebooks have names and do not usually have blessings ( benedictions ) , which is similar to what is found in books but unlike practical prescriptions ; 
  the absence of blessings indicates that the recipes in notebooks were written in order to record the recipes and not to instruct the pharmacists how to prepare the formulae and use them for treating patients on the spot ; occasionally the overleaf is blank , 
  and sometimes the verso is inverse to the recto ( the  top of one side is the  bottom of the other ) ; 
  in other cases the content of the verso differs completely from the recto 
  even when they both deal with medicine ( for example , in one case , 
  an aramaic ketuba appears on the back of the fragment ; the common practice of recycling ( secondary use ) of writing materials is evident in this instance ) ; sometimes the content on one side is divided into two to four columns , 
  in one case the recipes were crossed out ; 
  in most cases , the text is written in a vulgar style and is scrawled , 
  while the line arrangement is usually sporadic and unfixed , with margins of various sizes , similar to prescriptions and different from the books . 
  the majority ( forty - nine ) of the medical notebooks found in the genizah are written in judaeo - arabic , which undoubtedly was the vernacular at the time and clearly attests to the fact that these notebooks were written and used by jewish practitioners . only a few notebooks ( eight ) were written in arabic and one in hebrew . in other cases the content is in multiple languages ( hebrew , arabic and judaeo - arabic ) . some notebooks were written on vellum . 
  the study of genizah medical notebooks and their analysis led me to draw the following diagram in which i have attempted graphically to locate our documents between the theoretical literature and the medical practice of the practitioners in medieval cairo ( figure  3 ) . as mentioned at the beginning of the article , the main question which puzzled me was who wrote those medical notebooks found in the genizah , and for what purpose . from studying the history of notebooks and their uses throughout the ages in general and the medical notebook in particular , i suggest the following options : the medical notebooks of the genizah might have been the way the jewish cairene practitioners ( physicians or pharmacists ) kept their favourite recipes which were acquired from other physicians [ a  in the diagram of figure  3 ] and medical books [ d ] , or recorded when practising in local hospitals [ b];they might have been written by medical students who recorded the medical knowledge of their preference which they learnt from reading books [ d ] or picked up orally from famous physicians with or under whom they worked [ a ] . an earlier ( classical ) feature that was found in a pseudo - galen book , avoiding grief , strengthens the last two options . in chapters thirty - two and thirty - three he comments on his good fortune in being able to obtain most of the prescriptions from a rich man in asia minor who planned to assemble the best collection of recipes in the world , mainly copied from parchments ; 
 medical knowledge , mainly recipes , was collected by ordinary people . during this period they may have taken a great interest in medicine and some families might have owned notebooks filled with medical advice and recipes for their personal use [ c ] ; 
 traditional healers 
  were another group of community members who collected such recipes in notebooks for their professional needs and use . jones , who studied late medieval english medical and commonplace books , wrote on this issue : it will be as well to remember that medical practice was not just for professionals . it was not monopolized by those for whom medicine was a way of making a living . nor were medical practitioners the only people who recorded information in manuscripts . this argument stands in our favour since it applies to people in general beyond the more familiar boundaries of time and location . for example , in early modern yemen , many jewish families had similar medical notebooks that sometimes included traditional medical knowledge . 
  the medical notebooks of the genizah might have been the way the jewish cairene practitioners ( physicians or pharmacists ) kept their favourite recipes which were acquired from other physicians [ a  in the diagram of figure  3 ] and medical books [ d ] , or recorded when practising in local hospitals [ b ] ; they might have been written by medical students who recorded the medical knowledge of their preference which they learnt from reading books [ d ] or picked up orally from famous physicians with or under whom they worked [ a ] . an earlier ( classical ) feature that was found in a pseudo - galen book , avoiding grief , strengthens the last two options . in chapters thirty - two and thirty - three he comments on his good fortune in being able to obtain most of the prescriptions from a rich man in asia minor who planned to assemble the best collection of recipes in the world , mainly copied from parchments ; 
  medical knowledge , mainly recipes , was collected by ordinary people . during this period they may have taken a great interest in medicine and some families might have owned notebooks filled with medical advice and recipes for their personal use [ c ] ; 
  traditional healers 
  were another group of community members who collected such recipes in notebooks for their professional needs and use . jones , who studied late medieval english medical and commonplace books , wrote on this issue : it will be as well to remember that medical practice was not just for professionals . it was not monopolized by those for whom medicine was a way of making a living . nor were medical practitioners the only people who recorded information in manuscripts . this argument stands in our favour since it applies to people in general beyond the more familiar boundaries of time and location . for example , in early modern yemen , many jewish families had similar medical notebooks that sometimes included traditional medical knowledge . it will be as well to remember that medical practice was not just for professionals . it was not monopolized by those for whom medicine was a way of making a living . nor were medical practitioners the only people who recorded information in manuscripts . traditional medical writing has been described by barkai in reference to spain and north africa . he states that traditional medicine was not necessarily or exclusively the domain of ordinary people , and that whoever wrote traditional medical works most probably did not belong to the lower strata of society . barkai also differentiates between traditional medical writing and medical books according to the following characteristics : traditional medical writings , including classical and medieval , neither cite nor mention learned medical sources;in traditional medicine , the treatment of all diseases and conditions never includes surgical procedures;traditional medicine gives no indication of weights or measures;traditional medicine does not include magic symbols , spells , prayers , or oaths . 
  traditional medical writings , including classical and medieval , neither cite nor mention learned medical sources ; in traditional medicine , the treatment of all diseases and conditions never includes surgical procedures ; traditional medicine gives no indication of weights or measures ; traditional medicine does not include magic symbols , spells , prayers , or oaths . 
  from an analysis of our notebooks , most of them seem to contain learned medical knowledge . 
  a systematic search through arabic medical books for the source of the recipes found in the notebooks revealed only a few recipes copied from books [ d ] , for example , t  s ns 297.48 from al - khin al-ar al - isrl , minhj al - dukkn wa - dustr al-ayn f aml wa - tarkb al-adwiya al - nfia li - l-insn ; 
  and from sbr ibn sahl , al - aqrbdhn al - aghr  ( the small dispensatory ) , t the source for a greater majority of the recipes was not found in printed books or manuscripts . one explanation could be that those recipes were original , perhaps concocted by the notebook owners from their own experience [ c ] . another explanation could be that those recipes were passed on to students by word of mouth from their teachers , from other practising physicians or at the hospitals where they worked . in any case , like the point made by andorlini after studying 260 egyptian medical papyri of the classical period , these recipes may have been based not solely on the classical or arabic medical traditions , but also on local pharmacopoeias ,  developed through inaccuracy or alteration over the centuries. 
  a few scholars have raised a number of questions regarding medical notebooks and compendiums of a similar genre . although they studied notebooks from other periods or different geographical regions , i have noted their questions and will try to reply to them from our experience with the genizah notebooks . private notebook of mithridates found by pompey and said that it included a prescription for an antidote , 
  she raised the following questions : was it the original recipe of mithridatium ? did pliny have direct access to the notebook or is he reporting something he read , or heard about ?  was this notebook genuinely recorded by mithridates or a forgery ? did pliny have direct access to the notebook or is he reporting something he read , or heard about ?  was this notebook genuinely recorded by mithridates or a forgery ? the medical notebooks identified in the cairo genizah collections are not as old as the one mentioned by pliny , neither do they correspond to such well - known and important historical figures such as mithridates , pompey and pliny . however , they fortunately do supply us with answers to most of totelin s questions since the recipes in our notebooks are clearly original with only few of them copied from medical books . moreover , each notebook contained a few recipes which were genuinely recorded and were used by jewish practitioners in medieval cairo most of whom are still anonymous . after studying many old and middle english manuscripts of  household books and medical books , green raised many questions including the following :  would nt women have had access to books in their husbands libraries , and might not  household books  have been a venue in which men and women might equally share access to medical knowledge?. indeed , medical texts and recipes figure as common elements in many  household books , and in quite a few there are  vast numbers of gynaecological and obstetrical remedies. 
  with regard to this we should point out that among the 61 genizah medical notebooks found so far , which are dated a few centuries earlier than the  household books studied by green ; only one deals with gynaecological conditions . i therefore suggest that the genizah notebooks were not written by or for women even though jewish women might have had access to the medical books and notebooks in their household in medieval cairo , but most probably not for medical practice . the main contents of the genizah medical notebooks are selected recipes , methods of healing and medical theories [ e ] . the recipes and the medical knowledge collected this way can also give us a clue as to the most prevalent diseases among the members of the community . an analysis of the subjects mentioned in the medical notebooks offers an insight into their daily medical life . the vast majority of them may be described as pharmacopoeia and can be divided into three groups : recipes for the treatment of various diseases . thirty - five notebooks were identified as pharmacopoeia since they consist of recipes for a range of ailments . this corroborates our finding of vast amount of pharmacopoeias ( books ) that were identified in the process of studying the medical literature found in the genizah , and the reconstruction of the medical library of the jewish practitioners of medieval cairo;treatment of eye diseases . two fragments were in the literary style of a pharmacopoeia , 
  but the recipes mainly concern eye diseases . they were consequently identified as the part or chapter dealing with eye diseases in a private pharmacopoeic notebook , similar to the parts found in arabic medical books by authors such as al - kind ( ninth century ) , 
  ibn ab al - bayn , 
  and al - khin al-ar al - isrl . i elaborate on this issue in the commentary to the first fragment edited below ( t  s k14.32);specialised recipes . a few fragments were identified as dealing with skin diseases ( two ) , coughs and colds ( one ) , dentistry and oral hygiene ( one ) , gynaecological conditions ( one ) , and even traditional medicine ( two ) . seven fragments concern the actions and uses of simples and therefore can be described as materia medica . thirty - five notebooks were identified as pharmacopoeia since they consist of recipes for a range of ailments . this corroborates our finding of vast amount of pharmacopoeias ( books ) that were identified in the process of studying the medical literature found in the genizah , and the reconstruction of the medical library of the jewish practitioners of medieval cairo ; treatment of eye diseases . two fragments were in the literary style of a pharmacopoeia , 
  but the recipes mainly concern eye diseases . they were consequently identified as the part or chapter dealing with eye diseases in a private pharmacopoeic notebook , similar to the parts found in arabic medical books by authors such as al - kind ( ninth century ) , 
  ibn ab al - bayn , 
  and al - khin al-ar al - isrl . i elaborate on this issue in the commentary to the first fragment edited below ( t  s k14.32 ) ; specialised recipes . a few fragments were identified as dealing with skin diseases ( two ) , coughs and colds ( one ) , dentistry and oral hygiene ( one ) , gynaecological conditions ( one ) , and even traditional medicine ( two ) . seven fragments concern the actions and uses of simples and therefore can be described as materia medica . three notebooks found in the genizah , besides the above - mentioned pharmacopoeias on the treatment of eye diseases , dealt with ophthalmology which is discussed in detail below . other fragments concern general medical texts ( not recipes ) ( six ) , dietetics ( one ) , hygiene ( one ) , alchemy ( one ) , and astrological traditional medicine ( one ) . as mentioned before , a unique finding is a fragment containing fifteen identified medicinal substances and their synonyms and was described as a medical glossary . very few medical authorities are referred to or quoted by the writers of the medical notebooks in the genizah . the few that i did find are classical authors such as galen 
  and arab authors such as al - rz , 
  ibn sn 
  and ibn msawyah ( eighth  ninth century ) . this is unlike the practice of authors of medieval medical books , who quoted copiously from medical authorities in their writings . last but not least is the personal aspect ( experience ) : only a few such cases were recorded ; in one example , the author of one of the recipes for the treatment of eye diseases 
  used the expression mujarrab ( tried ) . the second example is found in the first fragment edited below ( t  s k14.32 ) , in which the author wrote personal remarks such as  marvelous and  see great benefit like many authors of eastern medieval pharmacopoeias who often concluded their recipes with such remarks . to demonstrate the variety of medical notebooks found in the genizah collection , i have chosen and edited three fragments for publication written , respectively , in hebrew , judaeo - arabic and arabic . hebrew ; semi - cursive script with sporadic tiberian vocalisation ; paper ; 1 leaf ; ; 2122 lines . t  s k14.32  ( 
 recto 
 ) text ( transcription ) : _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ t  s k14.32  ( recto ) translation : 1 . to preserve the eye s health , marvelous 2 . take pomegranates sweet and sour : squeeze them 3 . and put each one , alone , in the sun in a glass jar 4 . and strain it every month and discard the yeast : and afterwards assemble 5 . them equally together : and afterwards take to all and ? ? ? of them aloe : pepper : long pepper : sal - amoniac : of each one dirham . 7 . grind them all good and thin : throw into the juice 8 . mentioned : smear on the eye : and the 9 . older / riper the better : marvelous _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 10 . and one of the physicians that tried it on himself wrote , 11 . half evaporate : and afterwards add the same amount of honey : 14 . boil them until mixed : place in the sun 15 . twenty days : smear [ the eyes ] with it : and see great benefit . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 16 . for the whiteness of the eye tested : take goat s beard and blood 17 . of goat also and place them separately 18 . in one jar : and afterwards take dates kernels and roots 19 . and make powder : and afterwards take a fresh egg and extract its red 20 . powder and put in the eye and it will extract the whiteness : with god s help 23 . made as a dressing on the eye it will prevent leaking of it : : : : 24 . vine leaves and barley flour certain features attest to the identification of this fragment as a notebook . first , the setting of the information in the fragment is less formal than in a book . second , the fragment is eclectic in character : the recipes are not set out in any specific / systematic or logical order ( two recipes bear the name of an ailment in the first line ; and one starts with  one of the physicians   ) . however , the fragment was written by a single author ( one hand ) and all the recipes ( three on one side and three more on the verso ) are for the treatment of eye diseases . the medicinal substances mentioned in these recipes are varied and include many inorganic substances such as salt , animal products such as honey , goat ( beard and blood ) and egg . the rest are plants ( pomegranates sweet and sour , aloe , pepper , long pepper , sal - amoniac and dates ) . most of these are known to be used for such treatments ; however , some substances such as zinc which were normally used to treat eye diseases are missing from these recipes . the instructions are detailed and seem professional , although most of the recipes do not have specific weights and measures , unlike those in books and practical prescriptions . at least one of the recipes , the third in fact , presents traditional medicine on account of the substances recorded , mainly goat ( beard ) and goat ( blood ) , which would suggest that this notebook is an example of traditional medicine used by the people portrayed in genizah manuscript . the author inserts a personal comment into almost every recipe , for example , superlatives such as  marvelous and  see great benefit. the expression  may god help us , is formulaic closing typical of medical as well as other kinds of prescriptive texts . in general , the people portrayed in genizah manuscripts suffered from eye diseases just like their ancestors , 
  for the most part because of the hot climate . 
  since early times , eye diseases have been a major medical problem in egypt . the relatively large number of medical books found in the genizah dealing with ophthalmology , and the fact that eye diseases were the most important issue in medical notebooks , attest to this assertion . although there were differences between the various cultures in which some evidence of treatment for eye diseases has survived , such as in assyria , babylonia and egypt , many of their ophthalmologic practices were more similar than dissimilar . important information regarding eye diseases and their treatment comes from ancient egyptian sources ; a chapter of the ebers papyrus ( sixteenth century bc ) is devoted to eye disorders . the lotions described in the papyrus contained cream and milk ; however , the salves ( collyrium ) contained materials such as antimony , cooper vitriol , goose grease , honey , lapis lazuli , myrrh , onion , ox marrow and saltpeter . 
  according to albert and edwards not only were eye problems common , but their treatment was given some priority . estes found that 11.2% of all recipes mentioned in the ebers papyrus were for eye disorders . the most commonly recommended substances for eye diseases are , asafetida , balm of mecca , blood , dung , frankincense , galena , malachite , marrow , myrrh , ochre ( red ) and ochre ( yellow ) . the people in the eastern medieval world continued to suffer from eye diseases and the doctors had to treat them accordingly . medieval doctors were general practitioners but might also have a special skill in ophthalmology , bone - setting , pharmacology , or surgery. 
  according to savage - smith :  ophthalmology was the only area , besides pharmacology , that could be called a specialty. 
  and indeed , arab physicians displayed particular concern and skill in the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases ; 
  most of the arabic medical compendium has chapters concerned with eye diseases , and many monographs were devoted to eye disorders . two early writers who should be mentioned are unayn ibn isq ( ninth century ) and his teacher ibn msawayh , both being among the first arab physicians who wrote on this subject . the influential monograph on ophthalmology ten treatises on the eye written by unayn was based to a large extent on greek sources , 
  yet it showed considerable advancement in knowledge over the byzantine treatises . unayn mentions in his book that he wrote it as a result of requests made by many physicians . the iraqi physician al - kind in his aqrbdhn [ medical formulary ] , designated 30 drugs for the treatment of eye diseases which was one of the major ailments from which medieval people suffered . many other recipes are found in books written by physicians such as sbr ibn sahl , 
  khin ar al - isrl 
  and ibn ab al - bayn . one of the most highly regarded of all of the ophthalmological manuals covering 130 eye ailments was written by al ibn isa who practiced in baghdad . thanks to the genizah , we now definitely know that it was widely used by the jewish physicians in medieval egypt . as mentioned above , several dozen fragments of books on ophthalmology have been found in the t s genizah collection , many of which have been identified as belonging to al ibn isa s tadhkirat al - kaln . 
  a dozen of practical prescriptions also deal with eye diseases . judaeo - arabic ; oriental semi - cursive script ; vellum ; 2 leaves ( 1 bifolio , mutilated and stained ; ; 1015 lines ; f.2r is blank . recipes for a dressing applied to the liver region and the preparation of berberis tablets ( pastilles ) [ tenth  eleventh century ] . stick of liquorice clean of the black ones , 4 . of each a weight of 2 dirhams , 5 . and peeled seeds of chate melon 
  6 . 2 dirhams , and bamboo chalk 7 . and seeds of purslane , of each one 8 . starch and clean lac t  s ar.45.40  ( 
 recto 
 ) left . text ( transcription ) : t  s ar.45.40 recipe for dressing placed on the liver : take a weight of 4 dirhams 4 . roman absinthian wormwood and sandalwood and rose and barley flour and broad bean flour , 5 . of each one a weight of 2 dirhams , and betel palm of weight 1 dirham , 6 . all of it and knead it with coriander water and chicory water 8 . and dress the liver ; beneficial if god wills 9 . 2 dirhams , and tragacanth ..... of weight a dirham , 11 . rose made as jam and ..... 12 . tragacanth and knead it with rose [ water ] 13 . in the morning and in the evening and in ..... this fragment is clearly eclectic , and also represents a good example of the form of medical notebooks : it consists of at least two bi - folios;the recipes have different shapes;the handwriting varies;the size of the letters of the different recipes is not the same . it consists of at least two bi - folios ; the recipes have different shapes ; the handwriting varies ; the size of the letters of the different recipes is not the same . one of the recipes is exclusively for the treatment of the liver ( according to its title ) and the second is for liver ailments ( according to contemporary books ) . on the verso there is a recipe for cleaning lac , which is a major ingredient in one of the recipes . the medicinal substances listed in these recipes are the following : ( recto )  right : berberry , nard , liquorice , chate melon , bamboo chalk , purslane , rose , saffron , starch and lac . this recipe ( berberry pastilles ) is similar ( same ingredients in a different order ) to recipe no . 204 in sbr ibn sahl , al - aqrbdhn al - aghr  ( the small dispensatory ) . according to sbr ibn sahl it was used for fever , thirst and tumours of the liver and stomach . these two lines are the last part of a recipe the beginning of which is missing ( it is probably on the missing bifolio that was the inner part of the notebook ) . roman absinthian , wormwood , sandalwood , rose , barley , broad bean , betel palm , saffron , camphor , coriander and chicory . this recipe for the treatment of the liver has a weight of about twenty - two dirhams ( about seventy - seven grams ) plus the water . it might be either lohoch ( electuary ; arabic : laq ) or syrup ( arabic : sharb ) . recipes for cough relief in the arabic medical literature include various combinations ( for the synergetic effect ) of the mucilages and syrups produced by cooking the fruits or seeds of the relevant plants , or are produced from the gummy sap of particular trees . in our case the rose ( jam and water ) and gum tragacanth are the ingredients whose main effect on the respiratory system is to soothe irritated membranes ; such substances were usually combined with the  active ingredients ( that are missing in our case ) . t  s ar.42.67 ( recto ) ( figure  6 )  prescriptions of lesser and greater triphala , arabic ; ruqah script ; paper ; 1 leaf ; stained ; ; 8 lines ; verso is blank . figure  6:an arabic notebook consisting of unique prescriptions ( t  s ar.42.67 ) . take of cleaned chebulic and yellow myrobalan , indian [ myrobalan ] and emblic [ myrobalan ] , half a dirham each ; 3 . pound and mix in one qiyya of odourless sweet almond oil and add to it one ral 4 . dried turpeth , one mithql ; sifted white agaric , one mithql ; meadow saffron , two dirhams ; 7 . orchid , one dirham ; indigo seed , one dirham ; lavender , one mithql ; aloeswood 8 . the dose is one mithql in hot water the medicinal substances mentioned in these recipes are as follows : lesser triphala  myrobalan ( chebulic , cleaned ) , myrobalan ( yellow ) , myrobalan ( indian ) , myrobalan ( emblic ) , almond ( sweet , oil ) , honey ( bees  skimmed of froth);greater triphala turpeth ( burnt / dried ) , white agaric ( sifted ) , meadow saffron , orchid , indigo ( seed ) , lavender , aloeswood , ginger . lesser triphala  myrobalan ( chebulic , cleaned ) , myrobalan ( yellow ) , myrobalan ( indian ) , myrobalan ( emblic ) , almond ( sweet , oil ) , honey ( bees  skimmed of froth ) ; greater triphala  turpeth ( burnt / dried ) , white agaric ( sifted ) , meadow saffron , orchid , indigo ( seed ) , lavender , aloeswood , ginger . 
  their main medical characteristic is the treatment of stomach ailments , especially as a purgative . the pharmacological aspect of concocting the recipe is to grind all of the ingredients , then pound and mix them in one qiyya ( 33.8537.5 grams ) 
  of odourless sweet almond oil and add to it one ral of bees honey skimmed of froth . greater triphala  add thirty - three grams ; altogether 522 grams . since the author wrote that the dose is one mithql in hot water the amount here is good for 111 doses . this leads to the assumption that this recipe was more for the use of pharmacists . triphala ( arfal , irifil , irift , itriful , irful in arabic ) , is a compound laxative . here it is probably the tibetan / indian drug tripala . according to sbath and avierinos , it is  confections made of the three kinds of myrobalans , chebulic , embolic , and belleric. it applies to three kinds of myrobalans : kabul , belleric and embolic , that  strengthens the nervous organs and aids the organs of nutrition in regard to waste excesses. usually they are made up of equal weights due to their similar usefulness and strength . a prescription for yellow irful was found in the genizah ( t  s ar.41.81 ) . it was used for the treatment of piles ( haemorrhoids ) and contained honey , myrobalan ( black , yellow and chebulic myrobalan ) , bdellium , sugar candy , caper - root , leek seed , camel dung , long aristolochia and harmala seed . maimonides mentions the great irful in his books which was used for strengthening various organs , especially the heart and the senses , for delaying aging , and helping in coitus . it contains : parsnip , balsam bark , ginger , musk , rose seed , galangal , almonds , almond oil , aloe wood , anise , borage , cardamom , carrot seed , long pepper and myrobalan [ indian , beleric , embelic , yellow ] . first , the setting of the information in the fragment is less formal than in a book . second , the fragment is eclectic in character : the recipes are not set out in any specific / systematic or logical order ( two recipes bear the name of an ailment in the first line ; and one starts with however , the fragment was written by a single author ( one hand ) and all the recipes ( three on one side and three more on the verso ) are for the treatment of eye diseases . the medicinal substances mentioned in these recipes are varied and include many inorganic substances such as salt , animal products such as honey , goat ( beard and blood ) and egg . the rest are plants ( pomegranates sweet and sour , aloe , pepper , long pepper , sal - amoniac and dates ) . most of these are known to be used for such treatments ; however , some substances such as zinc which were normally used to treat eye diseases are missing from these recipes . the instructions are detailed and seem professional , although most of the recipes do not have specific weights and measures , unlike those in books and practical prescriptions . at least one of the recipes , the third in fact , presents traditional medicine on account of the substances recorded , mainly goat ( beard ) and goat ( blood ) , which would suggest that this notebook is an example of traditional medicine used by the people portrayed in genizah manuscript . the author inserts a personal comment into almost every recipe , for example , superlatives such as  marvelous and  see great benefit. the expression  may god help us , is formulaic closing typical of medical as well as other kinds of prescriptive texts . in general , the people portrayed in genizah manuscripts suffered from eye diseases just like their ancestors , 
  for the most part because of the hot climate . 
  since early times , the relatively large number of medical books found in the genizah dealing with ophthalmology , and the fact that eye diseases were the most important issue in medical notebooks , attest to this assertion . although there were differences between the various cultures in which some evidence of treatment for eye diseases has survived , such as in assyria , babylonia and egypt , many of their ophthalmologic practices were more similar than dissimilar . important information regarding eye diseases and their treatment comes from ancient egyptian sources ; a chapter of the ebers papyrus ( sixteenth century bc ) is devoted to eye disorders . the lotions described in the papyrus contained cream and milk ; however , the salves ( collyrium ) contained materials such as antimony , cooper vitriol , goose grease , honey , lapis lazuli , myrrh , onion , ox marrow and saltpeter . 
  according to albert and edwards not only were eye problems common , but their treatment was given some priority . estes found that 11.2% of all recipes mentioned in the ebers papyrus were for eye disorders . the most commonly recommended substances for eye diseases are , asafetida , balm of mecca , blood , dung , frankincense , galena , malachite , marrow , myrrh , ochre ( red ) and ochre ( yellow ) . the people in the eastern medieval world continued to suffer from eye diseases and the doctors had to treat them accordingly . medieval doctors were general practitioners but might also have a special skill in ophthalmology , bone - setting , pharmacology , or surgery. 
  according to savage - smith :  ophthalmology was the only area , besides pharmacology , that could be called a specialty. 
  and indeed , arab physicians displayed particular concern and skill in the diagnosis and treatment of eye diseases ; 
  most of the arabic medical compendium has chapters concerned with eye diseases , and many monographs were devoted to eye disorders . two early writers who should be mentioned are unayn ibn isq ( ninth century ) and his teacher ibn msawayh , both being among the first arab physicians who wrote on this subject . the influential monograph on ophthalmology ten treatises on the eye written by unayn was based to a large extent on greek sources , 
  yet it showed considerable advancement in knowledge over the byzantine treatises . unayn mentions in his book that he wrote it as a result of requests made by many physicians . the iraqi physician al - kind in his aqrbdhn [ medical formulary ] , designated 30 drugs for the treatment of eye diseases which was one of the major ailments from which medieval people suffered . many other recipes are found in books written by physicians such as sbr ibn sahl , 
  khin ar al - isrl 
  and ibn ab al - bayn . one of the most highly regarded of all of the ophthalmological manuals covering 130 eye ailments was written by al ibn isa who practiced in baghdad . thanks to the genizah , we now definitely know that it was widely used by the jewish physicians in medieval egypt . as mentioned above , several dozen fragments of books on ophthalmology have been found in the t  s genizah collection , many of which have been identified as belonging to al ibn isa s tadhkirat al - kaln . 
  a dozen of practical prescriptions also deal with eye diseases . judaeo - arabic ; oriental semi - cursive script ; vellum ; 2 leaves ( 1 bifolio , mutilated and stained ; ; 1015 lines ; f.2r is blank . recipes for a dressing applied to the liver region and the preparation of berberis tablets ( pastilles ) [ tenth  eleventh century ] . ( 
 recto 
 ) right . text ( transcription ) : t  s ar.45.40  ( recto ) right . stick of liquorice clean of the black ones , 4 . of each a weight of 2 dirhams , 5 . and peeled seeds of chate melon 
  6 . 2 dirhams , and bamboo chalk 7 . and seeds of purslane , of each one 8 . and starch and clean lac t  s ar.45.40  ( 
 recto 
 ) left . text ( transcription ) : t  s ar.45.40  ( 
 recto 
 ) left . recipe for dressing placed on the liver : take a weight of 4 dirhams 4 . roman absinthian wormwood and sandalwood and rose and barley flour and broad bean flour , 5 . of each one a weight of 2 dirhams , and betel palm of weight 1 dirham , 6 . all of it and knead it with coriander water and chicory water 8 . and dress the liver ; beneficial if god wills 9 . 2 dirhams , and tragacanth ..... of weight a dirham , 11 . rose made as jam and ..... 12 . tragacanth and knead it with rose [ water ] 13 . in the morning and in the evening and in ..... this fragment is clearly eclectic , and also represents a good example of the form of medical notebooks : it consists of at least two bi - folios;the recipes have different shapes;the handwriting varies;the size of the letters of the different recipes is not the same . it consists of at least two bi - folios ; the recipes have different shapes ; the handwriting varies ; the size of the letters of the different recipes is not the same . one of the recipes is exclusively for the treatment of the liver ( according to its title ) and the second is for liver ailments ( according to contemporary books ) . on the verso there is a recipe for cleaning lac , which is a major ingredient in one of the recipes . the medicinal substances listed in these recipes are the following : ( recto )  right : berberry , nard , liquorice , chate melon , bamboo chalk , purslane , rose , saffron , starch and lac . this recipe ( berberry pastilles ) is similar ( same ingredients in a different order ) to recipe no . 204 in sbr ibn sahl , al - aqrbdhn al - aghr  ( the small dispensatory ) . according to sbr ibn sahl it was used for fever , thirst and tumours of the liver and stomach . these two lines are the last part of a recipe the beginning of which is missing ( it is probably on the missing bifolio that was the inner part of the notebook ) . roman absinthian , wormwood , sandalwood , rose , barley , broad bean , betel palm , saffron , camphor , coriander and chicory . this recipe for the treatment of the liver has a weight of about twenty - two dirhams ( about seventy - seven grams ) plus the water . it might be either lohoch ( electuary ; arabic : laq ) or syrup ( arabic : sharb ) . recipes for cough relief in the arabic medical literature include various combinations ( for the synergetic effect ) of the mucilages and syrups produced by cooking the fruits or seeds of the relevant plants , or are produced from the gummy sap of particular trees . in our case the rose ( jam and water ) and gum tragacanth are the ingredients whose main effect on the respiratory system is to soothe irritated membranes ; such substances were usually combined with the  active ingredients ( that are missing in our case ) . t  s ar.42.67 ( recto ) ( figure  6 )  prescriptions of lesser and greater triphala , arabic ; ruqah script ; paper ; 1 leaf ; stained ; ; 8 lines ; verso is blank . figure  6:an arabic notebook consisting of unique prescriptions ( t  s ar.42.67 ) . take of cleaned chebulic and yellow myrobalan , indian [ myrobalan ] and emblic [ myrobalan ] , half a dirham each ; 3 . pound and mix in one qiyya of odourless sweet almond oil and add to it one ral 4 . dried turpeth , one mithql ; sifted white agaric , one mithql ; meadow saffron , two dirhams ; 7 . orchid , one dirham ; indigo seed , one dirham ; lavender , one mithql ; aloeswood 8 . the medicinal substances mentioned in these recipes are as follows : lesser triphala  myrobalan ( chebulic , cleaned ) , myrobalan ( yellow ) , myrobalan ( indian ) , myrobalan ( emblic ) , almond ( sweet , oil ) , honey ( bees  skimmed of froth);greater triphala  turpeth ( burnt / dried ) , white agaric ( sifted ) , meadow saffron , orchid , indigo ( seed ) , lavender , aloeswood , ginger . lesser triphala  myrobalan ( chebulic , cleaned ) , myrobalan ( yellow ) , myrobalan ( indian ) , myrobalan ( emblic ) , almond ( sweet , oil ) , honey ( bees  skimmed of froth ) ; greater triphala  turpeth ( burnt / dried ) , white agaric ( sifted ) , meadow saffron , orchid , indigo ( seed ) , lavender , aloeswood , ginger . 
  their main medical characteristic is the treatment of stomach ailments , especially as a purgative . the pharmacological aspect of concocting the recipe is to grind all of the ingredients , then pound and mix them in one qiyya ( 33.8537.5 grams ) 
  of odourless sweet almond oil and add to it one ral of bees honey skimmed of froth . greater triphala  add thirty - three grams ; altogether 522 grams . since the author wrote that the dose is one mithql in hot water the amount here is good for 111 doses . this leads to the assumption that this recipe was more for the use of pharmacists . triphala ( arfal , irifil , irift , itriful , irful in arabic ) , is a compound laxative . here it is probably the tibetan / indian drug tripala . according to sbath and avierinos , it is  confections made of the three kinds of myrobalans , chebulic , embolic , and belleric. it applies to three kinds of myrobalans : kabul , belleric and embolic , that  strengthens the nervous organs and aids the organs of nutrition in regard to waste excesses. usually they are made up of equal weights due to their similar usefulness and strength . a prescription for yellow irful was found in the genizah ( t  s ar.41.81 ) . it was used for the treatment of piles ( haemorrhoids ) and contained honey , myrobalan ( black , yellow and chebulic myrobalan ) , bdellium , sugar candy , caper - root , leek seed , camel dung , long aristolochia and harmala seed . maimonides mentions the great irful in his books which was used for strengthening various organs , especially the heart and the senses , for delaying aging , and helping in coitus . it contains : parsnip , balsam bark , ginger , musk , rose seed , galangal , almonds , almond oil , aloe wood , anise , borage , cardamom , carrot seed , long pepper and myrobalan [ indian , beleric , embelic , yellow ] . as mentioned before , the identification of genizah fragments that belong to the genre of medical notebooks occurred during the course of our study of the above - mentioned uk genizah collections . these documents provide the most direct evidence we have for preferred practical medical recipes because they record the choices of medical practitioners in medieval cairo . there is no clear - cut answer to the first research question : who wrote the notebooks and for what purpose ? however , a few options were suggested : cairene jewish practitioners;medical students ( both keeping preferred recipes);traditional healers ( recipes kept for professional needs and uses);ordinary people ( recipes kept for personal or family use ) . cairene jewish practitioners ; medical students ( both keeping preferred recipes ) ; traditional healers ( recipes kept for professional needs and uses ) ; ordinary people ( recipes kept for personal or family use ) . it seems as though there is no single right answer ; moreover , each notebook is a different case and therefore generalisation is not an option in this matter . the language of preference for the authors of the medical notebooks in the genizah was undoubtedly judaeo - arabic ; therefore , they were evidently jewish . the bulk of the information contained in the notebooks is medical recipes ; there are also methods of healing and few notebooks on medical theories . the subject matter of the genizah medical notebooks shows that they were mostly an eclectic combination of recipes which their owners had probably heard about from their teachers [ a , see diagram in figure  3 ] , learned at the hospitals where they worked [ b ] , prescribed to their patients [ c ] or copied from books they read [ d ] . although the medical notebooks found in the genizah are not as complete as the medical commonplace books from fifteenth century england that were studied by jones , we can learn from his research studies about their characteristics which in certain cases were similar . for example , with regards to the sources of the writer s medical knowledge , he found that it was derived  from personal experience to what he had seen or heard from other practitioners , to what he had read in the works of others. 
  as for the third question about the kind of medical knowledge recorded in the notebooks and their topics , it was found that the foremost medical genre mentioned in the notebooks was pharmacopoeic , namely the collection of recipes for the treatment of various diseases . regarding specialised notebooks , eye diseases are first , followed by skin diseases , coughs and colds , dentistry and oral hygiene and gynaecological conditions . as for where the recipes originated , since we have not succeeded in identifying the source of the great majority of recipes either in printed books or in manuscripts as mentioned above a similar point was made by andorlini about the contents of egyptian medical papyri of the classical period . 
  from the bibliographical survey notebooks had been in use in a number of ways since classical times , but we do have some historical allusions as to their uses for medical purposes . as part of the oral and written transmission of knowledge , teachers in early islam based their lectures and seminars on   collections  of data and  lecture scripts that were arranged in notebooks . notebooks were also a humanistic method of storing information including realia , medical synonyms and recipes , for easy access . the writers of the medical notebooks in the genizah concentrated mainly on the practical medical knowledge they wanted to record , probably for their future use as amateur physicians , students , traditional healers or professional practitioners [ f ] . hence , most of the notebooks are pharmacopoeias containing recipes for various ailments , a specific disease or organ , and materia medica ; only a few notebooks are about medical theory . theoretical knowledge was extensive and important for the training of practitioners and accessible in their own libraries or even homes , but it was less central to the daily routine of treating patients . notebooks , in general , were apparently meant to serve as memoranda , be it for a scholar or a practitioner . in the case of physicians or pharmacists , notebooks had a practical aim  to allow the practitioner ready access to the required medical information without resorting to the original books [ f ] . i argued here that the notebooks were also a form in which some of the earliest and well - known pharmacopoeias were composed . the authors acquired and accumulated practical knowledge and recipes and only later compiled and published this material as books [ g ] . it was most probably actual practice that drove the practitioner to compile the medical notebook . i strongly suggest that this genre should be kept in mind when newly discovered manuscripts on medicine and other subject matters are studied .
this article presents a plethora of fragments from the medical notebooks found in the cairo genizah that comprise a unique source of historical data for scholarly study and for a better understanding of the ways in which medieval medical knowledge in egypt was transferred from theory to practice and vice versa . 
 these documents provide the most direct evidence we have for preferred practical medical recipes because they record the choices of medical practitioners in medieval cairo . 
 since the language most commonly used in them was judaeo - arabic , they were evidently written by jews . 
 the medical genre in the notebooks was primarily pharmacopoeic , consisting of apparently original recipes for the treatment of various diseases . 
 there are also a few notebooks on materia medica . 
 the subject matter of the genizah medical notebooks shows that they were mostly of an eclectic nature , i.e. the writers had probably learnt about these treatments and recipes from their teachers , applied them at the hospitals where they worked or copied them from the books they read . 
 foremost among the subjects dealt with were eye diseases , followed by skin diseases , coughs and colds , dentistry and oral hygiene , and gynaecological conditions . 
 the writers of the genizah notebooks apparently recorded the practical medical knowledge they wished to preserve for their future use as amateur physicians , students , traditional healers or professional practitioners .