Venesection Sites on the Horse in the Veterinary Handbook of al-Nāṣirī = Vérvételi helyek a lovon al-Nāṣirī állatorvosi kézikönyvében

Kutasi, Zsuzsanna (2021) Venesection Sites on the Horse in the Veterinary Handbook of al-Nāṣirī = Vérvételi helyek a lovon al-Nāṣirī állatorvosi kézikönyvében. Kaleidoscope history, 11 (22). pp. 567-576. ISSN 20622597

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Abstract

The author usually referred to as al-Nāṣirī or Ibn al-Mundir (Abū Bakr b. Badr al-Dīn al-Mundir al-Bayṭār ca. A.H. 709-741/ A.D. 1309-1340) composed his handbook on the diseases of horses and the treatments thereof at the request of Nāṣir al-Dīn Muḥammad b. Qalāwūn in the middle of the 14th century. Under this Mamluk sultan, he served as chief veterinarian. A 9th-century work by Ibn Ahī Ḥizām titled Kāmil al-sinā‘tayn served as the basis of al-Nāṣirī’s handbook. As evident from the title of the book, the author offered a summary of a wide range of themes concerning horses, beginning with their important role in the jihad, and proceeding to discussions of their breeds and of military training. He compares the equid diseases with human ones, a structure that allows him to describe their medical treatments as well. The description of venesection sites, of obvious use for practising veterinarians, is featured among the chapters on anatomical structures. The seventh chapter of the work mentions as many as 21 optional sites of bloodletting. Here the text indicates only the „silent/non-palpitating blood-vessels” (ġayr al-ḍawārib), a concept that I sought to identify by recourse to modern veterinary anatomical sources and by consulting the expert opinion of a distinguished professor of veterinary medicine, Dr. Ferenc Szalay (whose help I gratefully acknowledge here). In the medieval Arabic context, veins and arteries were not yet defined in a way analogous to modern definitions; in accordance with Galen’s and his predecessors’ philosophy, the veins were traced to the liver, and the arteries, to the heart. Veins were thought to carry blood and nutriments to the organs to nourish them, while arteries distribute the innate heat to every part of the body. Al-Nāṣirī classified the blood system as a kind of functional anatomy, in contrast to Galen’s work on bloodletting, which described blood vessels according to the anatomy of the discrete body regions.

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