Journal of Semitic Studies Supplement

1 primary work

Novel Medical and General Hebrew Terminology from the 13th Century.

by Gerrit Bos

Published 14 April 2011

The current collective volume has two major objectives: 1) to map the medical terminology featuring in medieval Hebrew medical works translated in the thirteenth century, especially those terms that do not feature in the current dictionaries at all or in an insufficient way and thus facilitating consultation of these medical works; 2) to specify the medical terminology used by specific authors/translators and thus facilitating the identification of anonymous medical material. Unfortunately, the terminology in medieval Hebrew medical literature, both original works and translations, has been sorely neglected by modern research. Moreover, it is virtually lacking in the standard dictionaries for the Hebrew language, such as Ha-Millon he-h?adash composed by Abraham Even-Shoshan. The only medieval medical work to which Even-Shoshan refers is the Hebrew translation of Ibn Si?na?'s K. al-Qa?nu?n by Nathan ha- Me'ati; and even those references are indirect, having been borrowed from the dictionary composed by Ben Yehuda. Ben Yehuda's dictionary is indeed the only one containing a certain number of medical terms. However, it needs to be revised since it does not make a consequent use of the limited sources registered in the introduction. The only dictionary exclusively devoted to medical terms, both medieval and modern, is that by Masie, entitled 'Dictionary of Medicine and Allied Sciences'. However, just like the dictionary by Ben Yehuda it only makes an occasional use of the sources registered in the introduction and only rarely differentiates between the various medieval translators. Further, since Masie's work is alphabetised according to the Latin or English term, it cannot be consulted for Hebrew terms.