Canon of Medicine Volume 2: Natural Pharmaceuticals

As pretty much the first edition in a European language since Alpago's controversial 1544 translation, this should be an invaluable tool to the researcher. It is not;, it is marred by sloppy proof-reading, eccentric English and astounding inaccuracies. For instance to give Cyperus esculentus the curious popular name of "Monkey Pepper" instead of the more familiar "Chufa" or "Tiger nuts" is one thing, but to illustrate it with a picture of a Dandelion, captioned "Compositae" when Taraxacum doesn't otherwise appear either in the index or text, elevates the errors to a dimension way beyond mere carelessness. Again, Galium odoratum is given the vernacular name "Wild baby's breath", a name normally associated with Gypsophila paniculata, but illustrated with a picture of Galium verum, which conforms to the text..In fact in spite of the occasional infelicity the illustrations are arguably the best part and could well have been enlarged at the expense of endless repetitions of the meaning of "hot" and "cold" humours which could instead have been incorporated just once in a glossary. I could go on..........and on about the mangling of Linnaean names, page numbers in the index not correlating with those in the text and weird "popular" names but life is too short. Enough to say that the customer deserves far more for over a hundred quid.

top marks

25 Jahre vor Ibn Sinas 1000.Todestag erscheint nach dem ersten endlich auch der zweite Band dieses wichtigen Werks in einer europäischen Sprache (türkisch mittlerweile Band 1,2 und 5 erhältlich). Sicher keine Übersetzung, die den höchsten Ansprüchen von Orientalisten Genüge leistet. Doch da sich bis heute noch immer kein Orientalist, der sowohl über genügend Kenntnisse der Ibn Sina'schen Fachsprache, der mittelalterlichen Medizin und der historischen Zusammenhänge verfügt, an eine kritische Gesamtedition gewagt hat, kann man dem Herausgeber nur gratulieren und hoffen, dass die fehlenden drei Bände in den nächsten 25 Jahren in ähnlich hoher Qualität erscheinen dürfen.

In fact, everyone should read this book for health and well being. This 2-book series — including Volume 1 is a monumental masterpiece of great scientific and philosophical value. You will be awakened from the dream of the inefficiency of conventional medicine with enhanced understanding of other methods of healing. It is amazing to realize that so much knowledge was available a thousand years ago and yet we are hardly doing much better today. Read this series — both volumes 1 and 2 and be healthy, and stay healthy.

Been waiting for an English translation for this for years! Great work, very informative and a must read for any serious herbalist or traditional medicine practitioner. Avicenna is widely regarded as one of the most highly respected figures of traditional medicine and his works were studied for almost 1000 years by medical practitioners throughout Europe, Mediterranean and the Middle East. I recommend highly.