Harley MS 3140, ff 44r-67v

The Latin translation by Constantinus Africanus (c.1020-1098/9) of an Arabic treatise on urines (Kitāb al-bawl) by Abū Ya'qūb Ishāq ibn Sulaymān al-Isrā’īlī (fl. c.855-932), known to the West as Isaac Judaeus or Isaac Israeli, a Jewish doctor and philosopher, and physician of the Fatimid caliph 'Ubayd Allāh al-Mahdī of Kairouan, Tunisia (909-934). Title: 'Incipit liber urinarum Ysaac', translator's prologue incipit: 'In latinis quidem libris nullum auctorem', explicit: 'et ypostasi quid significet'; text incipit: 'Urina est colamentum sanguinis', explicit (f. 67v): 'Urina si per se fluxerit dolorem habentibus capitis / spasmum denuntiat. Explicit'. With glosses.

For the text, see L. Thorndike and P. Kibre, Catalogue of Incipits of Medieval Scientific Writings in Latin, The Mediaeval Academy of America Publication, 29 (London, 1963; with supplements in 1965 and 1968), p. 700l for the text, p. 688b-c for Constantine's prologue; its electronic edition (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), no. 700L for the text and no. 688B-C for Constantine's prologue. Text edited by Andreas Turinus and printed in Lyon in 1515 (a British Library copy is 543.h.1); see E. Fontana, Il libro delle urine di Isacco l’Ebreo tradotto dall’arabo in latino da Costantino Africano (Pisa, 1966). For the translation of the text into Middle English by the Dominican Friar Henry Daniel, known as the Dome of Uryns, see Harley MS 1010 (ff. 1r-23v). For Isaac Judaeus, see R. Veit, 'Isaac Judeus, in Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine. An Encyclopedia, ed. by T. Glick, S. J. Livesey and F. Wallis (New York, 2005), pp. 275-76.