Kitab Ul Mufradat Free Pdf VERIFIED Download

'Abdullah ibn Ahmad ibn al-Baytar, second only to Dioscorides in the universality of his genius, but surpassing even that great man in his insatiable thirst for knowledge, had collected in his Jami' li-mufradat al-adwiyah wa'l-aghdhiyah all that the ancients knew of plants and herbs, 1,400 items of samples, animal, vegetable and mineral, based on his own observations and on over 150 authorities. Ibn al-Baytar, devoting himself to botany and materia medica, produced a work which served as a guide in these sciences until a very late period. His descriptions of some of the more valuable drugs, such as myrrh, asafoetida, squill and their different preparations are deserving of great praise. The efficacy of several remedies which he recommends has been admirably confirmed by later experience, such as elm bark in skin diseases, male fern against worms and the use of infusion of the leaves of the willow tree to relieve pain in the joints. The compiler of the Grete Herball (printed by Peter Treveris at Southwark in 1526) noted that "the iuce of the leves of wilowe is good to delay the heate in fevers yf it be dronken"; if he could return now, and see the extent to which drugs based on salicin found in the willow leaves are used for this purpose and for the purpose of relief of pain he would feel that his statement had been confirmed to an extent of which he could scarcely have dreamed" (Young, Latham and Sergeant 1990, pp.362-3). Salicin, or salicilic acid, is the active ingredient in aspirin and other analgesics.

The largest and most popular of materia medica manuals was that by Ibn al-Baytar, who was born in Malaga in the kingdom of Granada towards the end of the 12th century and became `Chief of Botanists' in Cairo in the first half of the 13th century. His Arabic treatise, The Comprehensive Book on Materia Medica and Foodstuffs (Kitab al-Jami` li-mufradat al-adwiyah wa-al-aghdhiyah), was an alphabetical guide to over 1400 simples taken from his own observations as well as from 150 written sources that he names.