Harley MS 3140, ff 137r-195v

Isaac Judeus, De febribus. The Latin translation by Constantinus Africanus (c. 1020-1098/9) of a treatise on fevers (Kitāb al-Hummayāt) composed in Arabic by Abū Ya'qūb Ishāq ibn Sulaymān al-Isrā’īlī (fl. c. 855-932), known in Europe as Isaac Judeus or Isaac Israeli. The text is here preceded by Constantine's prologue. Title (f. 137r): ' Incipit liber Ysaac de febribus. Prologus', prologue incipit: 'Quoniam te karissime fili Johannes lacrimas', explicit: 'levissime in / pendere sciet'; rubric 'proemium [sic]' incipit: 'Liber igitur iste in .v. partes dividitur', explicit (f. 137v): 'rigorem ausque febre facit'; rubric 'secundum proemium [sic]', incipit: 'Oportet eos qui aliquid volunt investigare', explicit (f. 138v): 'essentia rerum ostendit'; rubric 'De diffinicione febris', incipit: 'Febris est calor preter naturam cor[poris?]', explicit (f. 195v): 'propter vicinitatem cordis. Finito libro'. The text is divided into five discourses (maqālāt) or books relating to: the nature of fevers (ff. 138v-141v); the ephemeral fever (ff. 141v-146v), preceded by a table of contents; the hectic fever (ff. 146v-153r); the acute fevers (ff. 153v-176v), preceded by a table of contents on f. 153r; the putrid fevers (ff. 176v-195v), preceded by a table of contents. 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), pp. 552c and 1010j; its electronic edition (Ann Arbor, MI, 2000), nos. 552c and 1010J (for the prologue see p. 1304M*, no. 1304M*). The text was edited by Andreas Turinus and printed in Lyon in 1515 (a British Library copy is 543.h.1). For Isaac and a modern edition of the Arabic text, a Latin translation (according to the abridged version printed in Venice in 1576), and an English translation of the third discourse see Kitāb al-Hummayāt li-Ishāq ibn Sulaymān al-Isrā' īlī (al-Maqāla al thālitha: Fī al-sill) / Isaac Judaeus: On fevers (The third discourse: On consumption), transl. and ed. by J.D. Latham and H.D. Isaacs, Arabic Technical and Scientific Texts, 8 (Cambridge, 1981).