Alchemy, Medicine, and Pharmacology in Medieval Islam: Rāzī's Twelve Books (360G-Wellcome-212671_Z_18_Z)

Razi (d. ca.925) was one of the greatest physicians of the classical Islamic world and one of its greatest alchemists. His encyclopaedic introduction to alchemy, The Twelve Books, had an enduring influence on medicine and pharmacology, but the book itself fell out of favour on account of Razi’s reputation as an heretical freethinker. Thus, The Twelve Books has long been presumed lost and its impact underestimated. Through recent advances in manuscript cataloguing, however, its chapters can now be located dispersed through archives across the globe. Previous studies have explored the links that have existed between medical and alchemical traditions since the latter’s origin in Greco-Roman antiquity and have suggested ways that mediaeval Islamic alchemist-physicians may have made alchemical contributions to medicine. Nonetheless, clear proof that medicine benefitted directly from Greco-Arabic alchemy has remained elusive. It has even been doubted whether Razi's own alchemical and medical thinking were integrated. By re-assembling and editing the fragments of The Twelve Books for the first time, this project will prove that they were. An English translation and detailed commentary will demonstrate of the contribution of Greco-Arabic alchemy to the development of medicine in both the Islamic world and Europe.