| Pseu-Pseu-Pseudo-io* | Damien Ihrig, MA, MLIS
Curator, John Martin Rare Book Room
 Much like a good Thanksgiving meal, the book this month has a little bit of everything. Foundational medical text? Check. Authorial intrigue? Check. Marginalia? Check. Evidence of possible censorship? Check. Evidence of manuscript AND printer's waste. Heck yeah. Football? Well...no. But don't let that stop you from reading on. Your brain-stomach will be full to the brim after reading all about Canones universales from Masawayh al-Mardini (also known as Yuhanna ibn Masawayh and in the West as John Mesue, Mesue the Younger, or Pseudo-Mesuë).
Mesue was a rockstar in medieval and early modern pharmaceutical medicine as well as a mysterious figure with confusing origins. The earliest known writing by Mesue is from northern Italy in the late 13th century. These are supposed Latin translations of the Arabic originals. The problem is, although Mesue is credited with many works, no original Arabic texts exist.
We now know through the detective work of scholars that Mesue is most likely a pseudonym chosen to capitalize on the name recognition of an earlier Arabic writer, Yuhanna ibn Masawayh. Ibn Masawayha (ca. 777-857) was a physician from Baghdad who wrote many works of his own. Known in the west as Mesue the Elder, Ibn Masawayha was famous in his own right and, among many other topics, wrote pharmaceutical treatises.
For more on Mesue the Younger, check out The "Prince of Medicine." It is a deep dive into his origins and lasting influence from Paula De Vos (2013).
See below for more on this month's book.
Stay well, eat well, and happy reading!
*My sincerest apologies to Phil Collins.
Hours
The Room is available Monday-Thursday, 8:30-5:00 (U.S. Central) and Friday by appointment. Face masks are welcome and available for free to all visitors. To guarantee the Room is available, please contact me at damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154. | | 
All times are Central
 November 9 at 5:30 pm – Iowa Bibliophiles
Poetic Visions: The Sackner Archive and the Avant-Garde at Iowa
UI Main Library - 125 W. Washington St.
Margaret Gamm, MSLS
Director, Special Collections and Archives
University of Iowa Libraries
Rich Dana, MSLS
Sackner Project Coordinator, Special Collections and Archives
In 1979, Ruth and Marvin Sackner began collecting works of art that blurred the lines between poetry and visual art. Forty years later, the Ruth and Marvin Sackner Archive of Concrete and Visual Poetry arrived at its new home, at the University of Iowa Libraries' Special Collections and Archives. The more than 75,000 items in the collection include works by many of the 20th century's most influential avant-garde artists and writers, along with ephemera, correspondence and personal items, all procured and cataloged by the autodidactic art collectors, Ruth and Marvin.
Director of special collections and archives Margaret Gamm and Sackner Archive Project coordinator Rich Dana will share items from the collection, discuss the Sackners’ unique legacy, and provide an update on current efforts to integrate the Sackner Archive into the Libraries’ extensive avant-garde holdings.
This event is free and open to the public. It will be held on the 3rd floor of the Main Library, doors opening at 6:30 PM. For all questions, please contact Elizabeth Riordan at elizabeth-riordan@uiowa.edu.
 RECORDING NOW AVAILABLE: The John Martin Rare Book Room Presents
Mental Health and the Weight of the Past: How Early Modern Physicians Read Greek Psychology
Jonathan Reeder, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor
Classics Department, University of Iowa College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Recording is now available on the Iowa Digital Library
| | | | MESUË THE YOUNGER (fl. ca. 1200?). Canones universales. First Giunta edition. Printed in Venice by Luca-Antonio Giunta, 1527. 388 leaves. 32 cm tall.
Mesue's works were an immediate hit. Some of the most famous western physicians of the time, including Petrus de Abano and Mondino dei Luzzi, wrote commentaries on Mesue's work. Canones, in particular, was very influential. It was printed more times in the 15th century than works from several other influential authors, including Ibn Sina and Pliny the Elder.
Canones contains the whole of the Pseudo-Mesuë's writings, consisting of three works: one on purgatives (laxatives); an antidotarium, or apothecary's manual, which was the most popular handbook of drugs in medieval Europe; and an incomplete manual of special therapeutics. The first work, De simplicibus, is a book of so-called “simples." These were substances from nature thought to have medicinal properties, or “virtues,” a term used throughout our many herbal medicine works. De simplicibus specifically listed forty-nine purgatives - substances used to purge bodily fluids and rebalance one's "humors."
The second work, Antidotarium sive Grabadin medicamentorum, or simply the Grabadin, was a major work of pharmaceutical compounds. It greatly expanded the drug treatments available to European practitioners. It was based on Arabic pharmaceutical tradition, which had as its foundation Greek tradition. It became the standard for European pharmacopoeia and was the foundation for centuries of pharmaceutical medicine.
This edition of 1527 (we also have a 1502 edition) would have functioned as a Physician's Desk Reference, guiding practitioners in their use of pharmaceutical treatments. Along with Canones, it contains medical and pharmacological works by other authors such as de Abano and dei Luzzi, as well as Abulcasis (Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʻAbbās al-Zahrāwī), Saladino Ferro, Gentile da Foligno, Christophorus de Honestis, Francesco di Piedimonte, Matthaeus Platearius, and Niccolò da Salerno.
This book has clearly lived an eventful life. As can be seen from the banner image and the image of the cover above, the leather covering has experienced quite a bit of trauma. The | | | pretty blind-tooled cover shows a large tear, deep scratches, insect damage, evidence of mold, and major loss along the lower spine. As horrible as all this may look, it provides us with a lot of information we would not have had available with a completely untouched binding.
For those interested in historical bindings, there is a wealth of information. The exposed spine shows us the sewing and materials used to create the binding. I have written before about manuscript or printer's waste - the recycling of manuscript and printed material in the construction of new books. The exposed spine on Canones shows evidence for both! Take a close look at the banner image and you will see hand lettering on parchment and what looks like a print of a small decorative frame used as a spine liner. For more on waste in the John Martin collection, join me for a talk I will give at the Iowa Bibliophiles this spring.
Diving into the book, many of the pages are heavily annotated, including several manicules like what is shown in my intro. And much like those of modern students, the annotations peter out before the end of the book. The more things change...
Taking a look at the paper, most of it is in really good shape. It has a lovely creamy color and supple texture. Every so often throughout the book is a leaf with heavy foxing (rusty-looking discoloration). It is clear that at least one batch of paper used to print the book was of substandard quality and contains acidic particles eating away at the paper. Hopefully, most of the damage has already been done.
Finally, about three-quarters of the way through the book, a section has been rather violently ripped out. The photo above shows the uneven and rough stubs left over from this assault. Did someone find something they disliked and angrily remove it? Was it a section with valuable information that a student or practitioner decided to take for themselves? The missing section mainly deals with the pleasant-sounding "putrid fever." Was it a library book and, lacking a sharp knife, someone coughed loudly while ripping out the pages? We will never know, but it is fun to think about!
Contact me to "waste" time this book or any others from this or past newsletters: damien-ihrig@uiowa.edu or 319-335-9154 to arrange a visit in person or over Zoom.
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