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| ART AND MEDICINE |
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| Year : 2008 | Volume
: 9
| Issue : 3 | Page : 126-127 |
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The articella
| Date of Web Publication | 17-Jun-2010 |
Correspondence Address:
 Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None  | Check |
How to cite this article:
. The articella. Heart Views 2008;9:126-7 |
The first letter of the page above is decorated in the manner of illuminated manuscripts. An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript page decorated with ornamental designs, miniatures or lettering, often with gold or silver leaf. Often these manuscripts contain small pictures known as illuminations or miniatures. Such manuscripts were common in the Middle Ages. They are often works of art. In the example above, the first letter of the page, the letter M, contains a miniature depicting a master instructing a student. The page displayed above is from a model "Articella."
The Articella is a collection of medical treatises bounded together in one volume that was used mainly as textbook and reference manual between the 13th and the 16th centuries. In medieval times, several versions of this anthology circulated in manuscript form among medical students. Between 1476 and 1534, printed editions of the Articella were also published in several European cities.
The collection grew around a synthetic exposition of classical Greek medicine written in Baghdad by Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809-873), better known in the West as Ioannitius. He was a famous Arab scholar, physician, and scientist during the Abbasiya period and known for his work in translating scientific and medical works in Greek into Arabic. His synthesis was in turn based on Galen's Ars Medica (Techne iatrike) and thus became known in Europe as Isagoge Ioannitii ad Tegni Galieni ("Hunayn's" Introduction to the Art of Galen).
In the mid-13th century, the emergence of formal medical education in several European universities fueled a demand for comprehensive textbooks. Instructors from the influential Schola Medica Salernitana (Medical School of Salerno) popularized the practice of binding other treatises together with their manuscript copies of the Isagoge. Other works included were Hippocrates' Prognostics as well as his Aphorisms, Theophilus' De Urinis, Philaterus' De Pulsibus and many other classic works.
Rachel Hajar, M.D.
Examples of miniature illustrations depicting medical consultation, examination and instruction. Within the first letter of each page is a beautiful illustration of scenes in the life of a medieval pyisician[Additional file 1] and [Additional file 2]
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