Body Parts, Veins and Pathologies in Judeo-Italian and Latin in Hebrew Characters[1]
This short study focuses on the analysis of medical terms in Judeo-Italian and Latin in Hebrew characters that pertain to body parts, veins, conditions and illnesses, discovered in a fifteenth-century Hebrew medical miscellany copied in Provence: Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms Hébreu 1181 (hereafter siglum P). At the back of this manuscript, on folio 264v, is an illuminated ink drawing of a Homo signorum et venarum (zodiac and vein man), namely, a naked (circumcised here) man adorned with the signs of the zodiac on various parts of his body. This illustration is accompanied by red lines stemming from different locations on the body and leading to short Hebrew guidelines on letting blood, which describe the veins to incise for various illnesses and bodily dysfunctions.[2] It is the sole known surviving example in a Hebrew manuscript of zodiacal melothesia.[3]

The illustration of a zodiac and vein man belongs to an iconographical tradition well-known in medical astrology[4] but found predominantly in Latin and vernacular medieval manuscripts, mainly of Western Europe.[5] Consequently, considering the great number of witnesses these languages preserved from the Middle Ages,[6] the fact that only one image of a Homo signorum et venarum in a medieval Hebrew manuscript is known today is even more remarkable.
Summary of the recently published parallel-text edition and commentary
The bloodletting injunctions surrounding this image were recently the object of a parallel-text edition and commentary, in an attempt to identify their path of textual transmission and likely place of production. In the study, the Paris manuscript was compared with three nearly identical sources, with slight variations in spelling and wording, all produced in Italy. These sources include: in Hebrew, Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Ms Vat. ebr. 376, 15th century, textual format (hereafter siglum V);[7] in Italian, Padua, Biblioteca Universitaria, Ms 604, 14th century, figurative format (hereafter siglum Pa);[8] and in Latin, Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ms Clm 10268, 14th century, figurative format (hereafter siglum M).[9]
The recent study of manuscript P began with an overview of the humoral theory and its relation to phlebotomy. Next, a chronological survey of treatises on phlebotomy and their literary genres was outlined, describing in particular a last genre, which appeared during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Western Europe. It consisted of anonymous independent treatises of a popular and empirical character, laid out in textual or figurative formats in Latin and European vernaculars,[10] as well as textual formats in Hebrew and Yiddish.[11] The bloodletting precepts in all four manuscripts were identified as belonging to this last group of literary genres. A parallel-text edition and tabular comparison then illustrated the identical, similar, or divergent bloodletting precepts appearing in P and in the three comparable texts in Hebrew, Italian and Latin (V, Pa and M). The results demonstrated that taking into consideration the numerous identical and similar precepts between P, V, Pa and M, as well as the minor scribal errors, omissions and additions in all manuscripts, all four texts were copied through intermediary Italian and Latin channels, from a common older Latin source. Furthermore, since Pa and M were both copied during the first half of the fourteenth century in Padua[12] and share much identical and similar content, phrasing and wording with P and V, it was suggested that these Hebrew versions, produced a century later, during the first half of the fifteenth century in Italy, may also have been copied in Padua or its surroundings.
Italian production of the Zodiac and Vein Man in P
It is noteworthy to mention that the last text of the manuscript — a summary of the treatise De Judiciis astronomiae (or De astrologiae) by the Catalan physician Arnald de Villanova (ca. 1240–1311), in Hebrew translation by Solomon ben Abraham Avigdor from Provence (b. 1384), titled Panim ba-Mishpaṭ (fols. 265v–266r),[13] was copied in an Italian square script, instead of the Provençal-Sephardic script used for the previous texts in the manuscript. Furthermore, the ink drawing of the zodiac and vein man (fol. 264v), enhanced with watercolours, is accompanied, on the top of the following folio 265r, by an ink drawing of the bust of a man, also painted, and whose left eye contains an enlarged cross-section, surmounted by the title: ‘image of the eye (with) its membranes and its humors’ (צורת העין כתנותיו וליחותיו).[14] These two images laid out on blank pages of the manuscript also feature an Italian script but in book hand, differing from the text Panim ba-Mishpaṭ on the following folios. The volume, therefore, must have travelled from Provence to Italy at some point after 1430, perhaps some ten to twenty years afterward, since the drawings date to between 1440 and 1450.[15] Several medical recipes and brief owners’ notes appear in Italian book hand scripts on the flyleaves at the end of the volume (fols. 268v–269r), also attesting to the peregrination of the manuscript. Consequently, the illustration of the zodiac and vein man (fols. 264v) and text (fols. 265v–266r) were copied in Italy later than the rest of the manuscript.
Use of Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin in Hebrew characters in texts P and V and their similarity to the Italian and Latin comparable texts Pa and M
A considerable number of terms in Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin in Hebrew characters[16] are included in the bloodletting precepts of P and its lacunary and identical sister-text V.[17] Both Hebrew texts are compared to the Italian (in Pa) and Latin (in M) versions of the same terms, listed and described below.
The four texts in P, V, Pa and M provide clear evidence of contacts between Christian and Jewish physicians and surgeons, and a cultural transfer of medical and surgical literature — and more precisely, texts on phlebotomy from Latin-into-Hebrew and Italian-into-Hebrew texts which, by the fourteenth century, were largely overshadowing Arabic-into-Latin translations in the medieval West.[18] In a recent study, Cyril Aslanov explains that in Provence and Spain, but also in Italy, “the Latin and the vernacular cultures formed a continuum, a fact that is reflected in the existence of an intermediate register,” which he labels an “interlanguage”. This term refers to “an intermediate space between a speaker’s first and second (acquired) languages, which exists while he or she is still in the process of acquiring active mastery of the latter” and “a zone of interference between two languages that come into contact, e.g., Hebrew and Romance vernaculars in the context of traditional Jewish diglossia.”[19] Aslanov goes on to observe that medieval Jewish translators living in Romance-speaking areas, who had assimilated to the spoken vernacular — that is, Italo-Romance in Italy in our case — were likely also to comprehend written material in Latin and in volgare illustre (written vernacular), since both followed similar syntactic and grammatical patterns, and that the latter would have functioned as a bridge between the spoken vernacular and Latin.[20] However, as these Jewish scholars regarded Hebrew as their sole literary language, they depended on a Hebrew superstratum, rather than a Latin one, in their translations, leading them to perceive all Romance languages indiscriminately as laʿaz (foreign language as a Romance vernacular). From this heteroglossic perspective, Aslanov suggests that they “tended to blur the boundaries among several dialects and included Latin as part of their indistinct medley of languages,” which could “explain their habit of quoting Latin words in a vulgarised form, that is, without the Latin declension ending or with a different ending, more appropriate to the vernacular than to Latin.”[21] Furthermore, a certain hybridization of the Latin/Vulgar interlanguage with Hebrew takes place, as we shall see below.
The Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin terms in Hebrew characters, as well as hybrid Hebrew-Italian and Hebrew-Latin ones found in the precepts of P and V, have been organized in the following categories, according to chronological order of the numbered precepts in the aforementioned edition on which this present short study is based: the names of parts of the body, the names of veins and the names of illnesses and conditions (some variants of the same terms found in different places in the edition are located in the footnotes). They are compared here to the Italian and Latin counterparts found in the texts in Pa and M, where present.
Names of parts of the body:
Chin (Lat. mentus): P n°7: המינטן (ha-menṭon) / V sent. 9: המונטוניא (ha-monṭoni ͗a) / Pa n°6a–6b: mento[22] / M: mento
Jaw (Lat. maxilla): P n°7: המשיל’ (ha-maśil) / V sent. 9: משיל (maśil) / Pa n°6a–6b: maxille / M: maxillarum
Throat (Lat. guttur, gula): P n°9: הגוצו (ha-gotso)[23] / V sent. 8: גוטא (guṭ ͗a)[24] / Pa n°9,14: golla, glotior[25]/ M: guturis, galys
Diaphragm (Lat. diaframa): P n°11: דיאפלימא (di ͗aflem ͗a)[26] / Pa n°17: diaflammata / M: diaframatibus
Stomach (Lat. stomachus): P n°13: והאסטומכא (ve-ha-͗esṭomac ͗a)[27] / Pa n°15: stomaco / M: stomaci
Muscles (Lat. musculi): P n°25: ולמוסקולי (u-le-musqoli)
Groin (Lat. inguen, inguina): P n°29: לאינגינלי (l ͗inguinali) / Pa n°30: languinaia[28]/ M: anguinalli
Knee (Lat. genu): P n°30: יינוקלו (genoqelu/genuqulu)[29] / Pa n°26: cenochi / M: genibus
Kidney (Lat. ren): P n°30: הריני (ha-reni) / M: renum
Hips (Lat. coxis): P n°35: האנקא (ha- ͗anq ͗a) / Pa n°27: ancha[30]
In these examples, many of the terms in P constitute a hybridization of Hebrew-Italian, with a Hebrew prefix of either ha- (הא), e.g.:המינטן (ha-menṭon), הריני (ha-reni), האנקא (ha- ͗anq ͗a) or le/li– (ל–), e.g.: ולמוסקולי (u-le-musqoli/musquli), לאינגינלי (l ͗inguinali), followed by the Italo-Romance variant in Hebrew characters. The termהגוצו (ha-gotso) used in P is spelled gozzo in Italian and is an abbreviation of gorgozza, which is the area of the throat. Conversely, V has opted for a vulgarised Latin variant of throat with גוטא (guṭ ͗a), from guttur in Latin. Lastly, the term יינוקלו (genoqelu/genuqelu) stems from the Latin genuculo, which is the singular dative or ablative declension of genuculum.
Names of veins:
Jugular veins (Arab. widāğīyya/ approximative latinized variant guidoch;[31] Lat. guide): P n°8: גווידי (guide)
Axillary vein (Lat. asselaris): P n°11: אצילירים (͗atsilirim)[32]
Circular vein (Lat. circularis): P n°11: צירקולים (tsirqulim) / Pa n°17: circular / M: circhularis[33]
Basilic vein (Lat. basilica): P n°12, 18: בסיליקא (basiliq ͗a) / Pa n°16, 23: basilica del ficao[34] / M: bassilicha[35]
Hepatic vein (Lat. hepatica): P n°12: איפאטיקא (͗epaṭiq ͗a) / M: epaticha[36]
Cephalic vein (Lat. cephalica): P n°14, 20, 21: ציפאליקא (tsef ͗aliq ͗a)[37] / V n°13: ציפאליקא (tsef ͗aliq ͗a) / Pa n°14, 20: vena de la testa[38] / M: cephalica[39]
Salvatella vein (Arab. širyān/ approximative latinized variant: sceylen;[40] Lat. salvatella): P n°21: הסַלְוָטילא (salvaṭel ͗a)[41]
Saphenous vein (Lat. saphene): P n°34: הצפיני (ha-tsafene) / Pa n°28: saphene / M: saphene
In the vein category, only the axillary, circular and saphenous veins in P utilize a hybridization of Hebrew and vulgarised Latin, with a suffix -im (ים) for אצילירים (͗atsilirim) and for צירקולים (tsirqulim), and a prefix ha- (הא) for הצפיני (ha-tsafene).
Names of illnesses and conditions:
Migraine (Lat. emicranea, emigrane): P n°1, 4: ולמיגראניאה (u-le-migr ͗ani ͗ah) / V sent. 1: ולמיגרנא (u-le-migran ͗a) / Pa n°1a–1b: migragna / M: emigrane
Ophthalmia (Lat. ophtalmia)[42]: P n°1, 31: ולאוטולמיא (u-le- ͗oṭolmi ͗ah) / V sent. 1:ולאוטולמיא (u-le- ͗oṭolmi ͗ah) /Pa n°1a–1b: postema dei ochi[43] /M: vissui occulorum
Styes (Lat. bothor): V sent. 5: בוטור (boṭor)[44]
Rheumatism (Lat. rheuma): P n°8: ולריאומה (ha-re ͗umah) / V sent. 7: ולריאה (u-le-re ͗ah)[45]
Quinsy (Lat. squinantia)[46]: P n°8, 9: ולאישקנינציאה (u-l- ͗eśqinintsi ͗ah) / V sent. 7: ולְסקויננציאה (u-le-squinintsi ͗ah)[47] / Pa n°9: squinancia[48] / M: essquilencie
Tumor (Lat. tumeo): P n°9: ולטימוני (u-le-ṭimone) / V sent. 9: ולטומוניא (u-le-ṭomoni ͗a)[49] / M: tumefaçionibus
Difficulty breathing (Lat. anhelitus): P n°11: אניליטו (͗aneliṭo) / M: difficulta in anelitus
Hepatic (Lat. hepaticus): P n°16: לאפאטיצי (le- ͗ep ͗aṭitsi) / M: eppactis
Paralysis (An. Gr. παράλυσις / parálusis): P n°18: פרליסי (paralisi)[50]
Atrophy (An. Gr. ατροφία /atrophia): P n°24: לאיטרופיצי (le- ͗iṭrofitsi)
Melancholy (An. Gr. μελαγχολία / melankholía): P n°25: מלינקוניצי (melinqonitsi)
Tympanites (An. Gr. τύμπανιτες / tumpanites): P n°27: לטינפנינו (le-ṭinpanenu)
Sciatic (nerve) (An. Gr. ἰσχιαδικός /iskhiadikós) (Lat. sciaticus): P n°35: השיאטיק/ השיטיקא(ha-śi ͗aṭiq/ ha-śi ͗aṭiq ͗a) / M: sciatic
For the words ולמיגרנא (u-le-migran ͗a) in V,ולמיגראניאה (u-le-migr ͗ani ͗ah) in P, and ולטומוניא (u-le-ṭomoni ͗a) in V, all three are spelled according to a phonological feature in Italian, i.e., the suffixes -na, -nia or -niah (with a final ‘he’ (ה) as in Hebrew), denoting their singular feminine form. The same can be observed in the terms אניליטו (͗aneliṭo), with an -o suffix in singular masculine form, and in ולטימוני (u-le-ṭimone) in P, with a suffix in -e for the feminine plural form. Furthermore, the following adjectives in P, לאפאטיצי (le- ͗ep ͗aṭitsi), פרליסי (paralisi), לאיטרופיצי (le- ͗iṭrofitsi) and מלינקוניצי (melinqonitsi), all have suffixes in -i, corresponding to the plural masculine form. Again here, many terms in both P and V contain Hebrew hybridization prefixes ha- (הא) or le- (ל–) in almost all the Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin words in the list, as well as the Hebrew possessive pronoun suffix -nu (נו) in לטינפנינו (le-ṭinpanenu). Lastly, the term ולאישקנינציאה (u-l- ͗eśqinintsi ͗ah) in P includes a prothetic vowel -e, resembling the Latin version in M with essquilencie, but absent from the Italian version squinancia in Pa.
In conclusion, this famous and sole known surviving image of a zodiac and vein man with surrounding bloodletting precepts (P), and its lacunary identical sister-text (V), both including body parts, veins and pathologies, enunciated in Italo-Romance and vulgarised Latin terms in Hebrew characters, with Hebrew hybridization for some of them, convey the breadth of medical terminology used by Italian Jewish physicians and surgeons, not only in written but probably also in spoken form. It is noteworthy to conclude that the study of medieval Hebrew primary sources, such as the manuscripts examined here, ultimately provides modern research with more evidence of the rich cultural transfers of medical and surgical literature in Latin and Italian into Hebrew that took place in Northern Italy during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
[1] This short analysis is based upon a recent publication by the author: “A Zodiac and Vein Man in a Medieval Hebrew Manuscript: Edition and Commentary,” Sudhoff’s Archiv. Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftsgeschichte (Journal for the History of Science and Medicine), 107.2 (2023), p. 131–203.
[2] The manuscript has been described in the following catalogues: Hermann Zotenberg, Catalogue des manuscrits hébreux et samaritains de la Bibliothèque impériale (Paris: 1866), p. 217; Michel Garel, D’une main forte. Manuscrits hébreux des collections françaises (exhibition catalogue, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, galerie Mansart, 1991–1992) (Paris : 1991), n°137, p. 187; Gabrielle Sed-Rajna and Sonia Fellous, Les manuscrits enluminés des bibliothèques de France (Paris, Louvain: 1994), p. 76–78. For a recent description of the manuscript, see Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 142–147.
[3] Assigning the twelve zodiacal signs to various parts of the body (e.g., Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms Ashmole 391, ca. 1440, fol. 3r; London, British Library, Arundel Ms 251, 15th c., fol. 46r). See also the association of the seven planets (e.g., Edinburgh, Royal Observatory, Ms Crawford 9145, 1464, fol. 73v). On melothesia, see Otto E. Neugebauer, “Melothesia and Dodekatemoria,” in: Astronomy and History: Selected Essays (New York: 1983), p. 352–357, and Justine Isserles, “Bloodletting and Medical Astrology in Hebrew Manuscripts from Medieval Western Europe,” Sudhoffs Archiv: Zeitschrift für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 101.1 (2017), p. 19–22.
[4] Considered part of the judicial branch of astrology, medical astrology provided specific prognostications on a patient’s health and the right time for performing an action. Furthermore, these predictive aspects interacted with the classical theories of humoral medicine; see Isserles, “Bloodletting and Medical Astrology,” p. 19–27.
[5] For examples, see Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 132, n. 7.
[6] Carl Sudhoff, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Chirurgie im Mittelalter. Graphische un textliche Untersuchungen in mittelalterlichen Handschriften (Leipzig: 1914), vol. 1.
[7] Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 147–148.
[8] Id., p. 148–151.
[9] Id., p. 151–152.
[10] For examples, see Sudhoff, Beiträge.
[11] See Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 140–141.
[12] In addition, Pa contains three words which are part of the Paduan dialect. These are sora, a dialectal variant of sopra; beldelo, a dialectal variant of budello; and petenegio, a dialectal variant of petenecchio; Dizionario tascabile del dialetto veneziano come viene usitato anche nelle provincie di Padova, di Vicenza, di Treviso coi termini toscani corrispondenti or ora abbreviato e ridotto a comodità di tutti (Padua: 1847), p. 17, 89, 119.
[13] See Moritz Steinschneider, Die Hebraeischen Uebersetzungen des Mittelalters und die Juden als Dolmetscher. Ein Beitrag zur Literaturgeschichte des Mittelalters, Meist nach Handschriftlichen Quellen (Berlin: 1893), p. 489. The work was translated from Latin into Hebrew in 1393; see Mauro Zonta, “Medieval Hebrew Translations of Philosophical and Scientific Texts. A Chronological Table,” in: Gad Freudenthal (ed.), Science in Medieval Cultures (Cambridge: 2012), p. 17–73 (esp. p. 62). See also Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, Ms Hébreu 1061, fols. 197r–209v, which contains the whole treatise (Zotenberg, Catalogue, p. 195).
[14] The text includes Latin medical terms in Hebrew characters, formed by a hybridization of Hebrew and Latin such as ketoneṭ qoniṭivah (כתונת קונייטיבה), ‘conjunctive membrane,’: ‘cornea’ (qorne ͗ah/קןרניאה) or ‘uvea’ (͗uve ͗ah /אוביאה). On sketches of eye anatomy, see Luke Demaitre, Medieval Medicine. The Art of Healing, from Head to Toe (Santa Barbara (CA): 2013), p. 155–156.
[15] Garel, D’une main forte, p. 178.
[16] Transliteration system for Hebrew and Judeo-Italian: א = ͗; ב = b/v; ג = g; ד= d; ה= h ; ו|וו = au/o/u/v; ז= z; ח = ḥ; ט= ṭ; יי|י = g (sound ‘dg’)/i/yi/e/ei; כ|ך = k/kh; ל= l; מ|ם= m; נ|ן= n; ס= s; ע=ʿ; פ|ף= p/f; צ|ץ= ts; ק= q; ר = r; ֹש= sh; שֹ= ś; ת= t. This system is based on Randall K. Barry, compiler and editor. ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-Roman Scripts. Washington, D.C., 1997. Updated at www.loc.gov/catdir/cpso/roman.html.
[17] Although the bloodletting precepts in V are incomplete and only include thirteen rules (sentences 1–13), they are not only identical but are also very useful for the understanding of the Hebrew texts because they supplement portions of phrases and words missing in P, which is not as complete a copy of these instructions as V. The precepts shared by P and V pertain to the head, the neck and the right arm and hand.
[18] As Freudenthal notes on page 113, “The proportion of medical works in the total corpus of works translated from Latin to Hebrew in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries abruptly increased when Latin medicine began to overshadow its Arabic forebear in the fourteenth century;” see Gad Freudenthal, “The Father of the Latin-into-Hebrew Translations. ‘Doeg the Edomite.’ The Twelfth-Century Repentant Convert,” in: Resianne Fontaine, Gad Freudenthal (eds.), Latin-into-Hebrew: Texts and Studies (Leiden: Boston: 2013), vol. 1, p. 105–119.
[19] See Cyril Aslanov, “From Latin into Hebrew Through the Romance Vernaculars: The Creation of an Interlanguage Written in Hebrew Characters,” in: Latin-into-Hebrew, vol. 1, p. 69–84 (esp. p. 71–72).
[20] Id., p. 72–73.
[21] See Aslanov, “From Latin into Hebrew,” p. 74, 78.
[22] Emanuele Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna” di Bruno da Longobucco in volgare. Edizione del codice Bergamo MA 501, commento linguistico, glossario latino-volgare (Berlin, Boston: 2020), p. 559 s.v. mentus.
[23] P n°14: ושגוצו (u-she-gotso); see Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 546 s.v. guttur.
[24] Ibid.
[25] Variant of glotidor, meaning ‘throat’; ibid.
[26] Variant of the Italian word diaflama or diaflamma, an older anatomical term for diaphragm; see Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 538 s.v. diafragma.
[27] P n°18: לאסטומכא (l ͗esṭomac ͗a).
[28] Id., p. 547–548 s.v. inguen, inguinalis.
[29] Variant of the Latin genu or genuculum, becoming in Italian ginocchio or cenochi as in Pa; see Id., p. 545, s.v. ginocchio.
[30] See Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 523 s.v. anca.
[31] See guidoch for the jugular veins in Arabic, and their Italian counterparts vene guide (giugulari) del collo or also vene organiche in Mario Tabanelli, La chirurgia italiana nell’alto medioevo (Florence: 1965), vol. 2, p. 1059, 1016–1017.
[32] The word אצילי for axillary vein is used in Natan ha-Meati’s (Rome, 13th c.) Hebrew translation of Avicenna’s Canon, and is another name for the basilic vein: והבסיליק הוא בזרוע למטה מן הגיד האמצעי לעמת הלב ויקרא גם כן האצילי (‘the basilic vein; this is the one situated on the inner side termed also the axillary vein…’). While the axillary vein and its benefits are indeed mentioned in Avicenna’s Canon (see English translation by Mones Abu-Asab, Hakima Amri, Marc S. Micozzi, Avicenna’s Medicine: A New Translation of the 11th-Century Canon with Practical Applications for Integrative Health Care (Toronto: 2013), p. 380) and Galen’s On the Anatomy of the Veins and Arteries (in Peter Brain, Galen on Bloodletting. A Study of the Origins, Development and Validity of his Opinions, with a Translation of the Three Works (Cambridge: 1986), p. 141), it is rarely mentioned in an image of a vein man or a treatise on bloodletting (e.g., one exception being the Latin term acellari found in the treatise on bloodletting in Arnaldus de Villanova, Tractatus de Consideracionibus Operis Medicine Sive de Flebotomia, Luke Demaitre (ed.), Praefatione et Commentariis Hispanicis et Anglicis Instruxerunt Pedro Gil-Sotres et Luke Demaitre (Barcelona: 1988) (Arnaldi de Villanova Opera Medica Omnia, vol. IV), p. 158).
[33] The axillary vein is called the ‘circular vein’ by P, Pa and M because it encircles the clavicle, and it originates lower down from the union of the basilic and brachial veins.
[34] See vena del figado in Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 582 s.v. vena.
[35] On the origins of the naming of the basilic and cephalic veins, see Linda E. Voigts, Michael R. McVaugh, A Latin Technical Phlebotomy and its Middle English Translation, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 74.2 (1984), p. 1–69 (esp. p. 2 with n. 2).
[36] A common assumption going back to Antiquity, adopted by Galen, and subsequently by the great scholars of medieval humoral medicine, was that the basilic vein in the elbow of the right arm was venesected for illnesses related to the liver, hence the use of the appellation “hepatic” (in Brain, Galen on Bloodletting, p. 142). Likewise, the basilic vein in the elbow of the left arm was venesected for illnesses of the spleen (see P n°18; Pa n°22 in the recent publication), hence the term ‘splenetic’; see Villanova, Tractatus, p. 158: Nam Basilica in dextro specialiter epatica vocatur, basilica vero in sinistro splenetica dicitur nomine speciali.
[37] P n°22: מיזבליקא (mi-zevaliq ͗a).
[38] See vena del capo, vena de la testa in Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 583, s.v. vena.
[39] Also called the vena nigra (black vein) by Avicenna, Liber Canonis (Venice: 1507), Lib. I, Fen 4, Chap. 20, fol. 75r, because of its deeper location in the arm. It is also called the cardiaca because it evacuates blood directly from the heart and stomach; Villanova, Tractatus, p. 98–99.
[40] See Id.,p. 100.
[41] This term was vocalised in the manuscript. Compare with P n°22: הסלווטילה (ha-salvaṭelah).
[42] This condition can be related to an inflammation of the eye, with runny eyes and accumulation of crust, possibly making it difficult to see in daylight, as mentioned above; see Demaitre, Medieval Medicine, p. 159.
[43] Aposteme of the eyes (localized swelling).
[44] Latin loan word of bothor in Hebrew characters, found in Avicenna’s Latin translation of the Canon, within an instruction regarding the two angular veins in the corner of the eyes (Iuvamentum vero flebothomie ipsorum duarum existit in dolore capitis, et in dolore emigraneo et ophtalmia antiqua et lacrymis, et panno et scabie palpebrarum et earum bothor et noctilopis); see Avicenna, Liber Canonis, Lib. I, Fen 4, Cap. 20, fol. 76r–v; Isserles, “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 157.
[45] The scribe of V wrote the word lung (ולריאה), instead of ולריאומה (u-le-re ͗umah) as in P. This could be a spelling mistake or perhaps not; see Isserles “A Zodiac and Vein Man,” p. 161, P n°8 and V sent. 7, lines 13–16.
[46] Known in English as quinsy, it is an outdated term for angina, pharyngitis; see Villanova, Tractatus, p. 103, 154.
[47] V n °8: ולסקויננ’ (u-le-squinin’).
[48] See Ventura, La “Chirurgia Magna,” p. 298–299, 732 s.v. squinantia.
[49] Ṭomoni ͗a, or the variant in plural form ṭimone, as in P, are possibly vulgarised Latin variants from the Latin verb tumeo, meaning ‘to swell;’ Ventura (2020), p. 740 s.v. tumor.
[50] Compare with the term פארלייא (parali ͗a) found in a fifteenth-century bloodletting treatise from Ashkenaz in Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, Ms RIV 2, fols. 45r/v (esp. fol. 45v).




