I think that You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. provides a rather clear explanation:
In some manuscripts, such illustrative albums do not contain any text, but only the names of the plants in the language of the several groups present in medieval society. These albums with multilingual lists of plant names were visual aids which allowed for easy identification of the plants to be used in the practice of remedial therapy. Their representations of materia medica were much more efficient than words to make transcultural exchanges possible.
As stated You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., "Each simple is captioned with the plant’s name and synonym, or a translation of its Arabic name. A richly illustrated codex with practically no text such as this one may have been made for book collectors as well as for medicinal use."
This particular manuscript is too rich and elegant to have been created for a physician: it was more like a luxury picture book.
Anyway, if you needed to know how to say donkey in Arabic, you could search for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and find the Latin for wild donkey (onagrum) and the Arabic term (omaraules). If you had a recipe written in Latin and prescribing some strange ingredient, you could find it in the book and check the image to be sure to get the right herb.
In some manuscripts, such illustrative albums do not contain any text, but only the names of the plants in the language of the several groups present in medieval society. These albums with multilingual lists of plant names were visual aids which allowed for easy identification of the plants to be used in the practice of remedial therapy. Their representations of materia medica were much more efficient than words to make transcultural exchanges possible.
As stated You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., "Each simple is captioned with the plant’s name and synonym, or a translation of its Arabic name. A richly illustrated codex with practically no text such as this one may have been made for book collectors as well as for medicinal use."
This particular manuscript is too rich and elegant to have been created for a physician: it was more like a luxury picture book.
Anyway, if you needed to know how to say donkey in Arabic, you could search for You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. and find the Latin for wild donkey (onagrum) and the Arabic term (omaraules). If you had a recipe written in Latin and prescribing some strange ingredient, you could find it in the book and check the image to be sure to get the right herb.