Study of Ibn Sina's Qanon of Medicine: As a basis for comparison of Eastern and Western Herbalism

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 19K21653
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 3:History, archaeology, museology, and related fields
• Research Institution: Kansai University (2023); Chiba Institute of Science (2019-2022)
• Principal Investigator: HASHIZUME RETSU 関西大学, 文学部, 准教授 (10613862)
• Project Period (FY): 2019-06-28 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: イブン・スィーナー / 『医学典範』 / 本草学 / アラビア語写本

Outline of Final Research Achievements

In this study, I focused on the information on the properties of plants, etc., and their efficacy as medicines contained in the herbalism book of the second volume of "Qanon of Medicine" written by Ibn Sina, and collected and compared the manuscripts of the Arabic herbalism book as much as possible in order to investigate to what extent these information agreed with the contents of the herbalism book of the period before and after him, to what extent they reflected the contents of the herbalism book in the past, and what new information was added. By comparing the items of "Alif", it was found that "Qanon of Medicine" was not a mainstream item arrangement of herbalism books, and that the number of records was about 1/3 of that of Ibn Baytar's herbalism book, which boasted the largest number of records, but the value of "Medical Law" itself, which is a medical book, showed that it had some influence on herbalism books in later generations.

Free Research Field

アラビア語写本研究

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

イブン・スィーナー著『医学典範』は従来第1巻の内容が注目されてきた。これは当時の医学研究の清華を示し、彼の哲学議論を理解するための手がかりとなることが要因である。しかし、本研究で注目した同書第2巻も、収録項目が後世の本草学書と比べて少なくはあるが、ギリシア由来の本草学の成果を凝集し、また薬剤の効能を、同じくギリシア由来の四元素説を土台として説明している点で、当時の医学体系の頂点を示す内容を有していることが見えてきた。この成果を基に、『医学典範』と同時代ないし前後の時代の本草学の伝統とその学問的発展、そしてイスラム世界を超えてその成果がどのように広まったかを比較検討することが可能となるだろう。