FROM ARABIC INTO HEBREW. THE BIRTH OF MEDIEVAL HEBREW GYNAECOLOGY AND IBN SINA'S CANON OF MEDICINE

The aim of this essay is to show that the Zikhron ha.olayim ha-hovim be-klei ha-herayon (An account of the diseases of the organs of pregnancy)-a short Hebrew treatise on the conditions of male and female sexual organs, written in Castile at the turn of the 12th century-is an epitome of funun 20 and 21 of Book III from Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine, drawn directly from Arabic some decades prior to the first known Hebrew translation. With this in mind, the only manuscript copy from the Hebrew treatise so far identified and several Hebrew and Latin witnesses of the Canon have been collated. Moreover, its production has been analyzed in the context of the movements of translation, appropriation and transmission of medical knowledge that occurred in multicultural and multilingual Castile between the 12th and the 14th centuries. The essay also examines the position of the Zikhron within the Hebrew corpus of literature on women's health care, as well as its late circulation in the 15th century, prompted by the new interest on gynaecology shown by male medical authors and their audiences.