Haddād manuscript collection

An online catalogue of the Wellcome Arabic manuscripts

Prepared by Nikolaj Serikoff: n.serikoff@wellcome.ac.uk

Part of the Wellcome collection of Arabic manuscripts presently shelved at WMS AR 400 - WMS AR. 487 constitute most of the Arabic medical manuscript collection of Dr Sami Ibrahim Haddād (1890-1957), the well-known Lebanese physician and historian of medicine.

These manuscripts, in number 87, containing more than 100 works and ranging from the 14th to the 20th centuries, relate to various aspects of Arabic medicine from general works to special treatises like embryology. The collection includes not only works by well-known Islamic authors, such as al-Majusi, Ibn Sina and Jewish authors who wrote in Arabic (al-Isra'ili), but also a significant number of lesser known works written or transcribed by Christian Arabs. These latter include translations from medical manuals composed in French by the eminent physician, Antoine Barthelemy Clot Bey (1793-1868). Almost all these manuscripts are complete, including their initial and final pages, and are in a good state of preservation. A number of manuscripts contain owners' notices, and different styles of calligraphy and decoration which suggest that they originate from the same Middle Eastern libraries and scriptoria as the manuscripts preserved in the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy at St Petersburg. This fact establishes a significant link between these two collections.

This is the first time such a descriptive catalogue has been made accessible online thus enabling researchers in different parts of the world to consult each codex in detail prior to coming to the Wellcome Library in London to consult the manuscript per se.