Akrabadhin (the pharmacopoeia, a treatise on compound drugs)

Akrabadhin (from the Syriac grabadhin, which reproduces a Greek word for "treatise") was the Arabic title given to treatises on the composition of drugs, that is, to pharmacopoeias. ²

Pharmacological instruction became an important part of medical training in the hospitals at a very early date. The large hospitals had a pharmacist on the staff, as al-Biruni's al-Saydala fi l-tibb suggests. As the materia medica grew, drawn from Greek, Iranian and Indian sources, a separate body of pharmacists emerged. A doctor in ordinary practice might still prescribe and compound his own mixtures, but drugs were usually bought from the druggist (see AL-'ATTAR) and compounded afterwards. The muhtasib had to watch for the adulteration of drugs, and al-Kindi wrote a treatise with recipes for substitutes for rare drugs. ²

A Galenic work on compound drugs had been translated into Arabic under the title Kitab Tarkib al-adwiya, by Hubaysh from the Syriac of Hunayn b. Ishaq. Surgeons were required to master this work before they could practise. ²

The first pharmacopoeia to win universal acceptance in the caliphate was written by the Christian physician Sabur b. Sahl (d. 255/869), who was on the staff of the hospital of Djundaysabur. Ibn al-Nadim gives it 22 chapters and Ibn Abi Usaybi'a 17; it was in common use for a long time. Later the Akrabadhin of Amin al-Dawla Hibat Allah b. Sa'id Ibn al-Tilmidh (d. 560/1165) became the standard work. He was a court physician to al-Muqtafi and to al-Mustanjid, attached to the 'Adudi hospital in Baghdad; besides the Akrabadhin in 20 chapters, he wrote a compendium, al-Mujaz al-bimaristani, for use in ordinary hospitals. ³

Other works of the genre include the Akrabadhin of al-Razi, and that of Badr al-Din Muhammad b. Bahram al-Kalanisi (written 590/1194), which quotes al-Razi's al-Hawi and al-Mansuri and Avicenna's Qanun. The fifth part of the great compilation of Nadim al-Din Mahmud b. Ilyas al-Shirazi (d. 730/1330), a treatise on compound drugs, was edited by F. F. Guigues (Paris, 1902). In Egypt the Jewish physician Musa b. al-'Azar (Moses b. Eleazar) wrote an Akrabadhin for the Fatimid caliph al-Mu'izz. ³

In the hospitals of Egypt, Syria and Iraq the Dustur al-bimaristani of Abu l-Fadl b. Abi l-Bayan al-Isra'ili was used until it was replaced by the Minhaj al-dukkan of Ibn al-'Attar al-Isra'ili, published at Cairo in 658/1260. ³

In Muslim Spain the study of Dioscorides seems to have given great confidence in simple drugs. Ibn Wafid, who died after 460/1068, seldom prescribed a compound drug, and the most important pharmacologist of Muslim Spain, al-Ghafiqi, was likewise a devoted follower of the Dioscoridean tradition. In the Latin world the Grabadin of Mesue the Younger, which Leo Africanus attributes to a certain Masawayh al-Marindi, was translated by a Sicilian Jew and for centuries was the recognized pharmacopoeia throughout Europe, the basis of later official pharmacopoeias. For the medical principles behind the composition and administration of drugs see TIBB. ³