Phlebotomy knife

Atzlan ben Abraham al-Karaji

18th Century

Illustration of bloodletting knife on right side of a manuscript page, with Judeo-Arabic text surrounding.
This illustration of a phlebotomy knife appears in an eighteenth-century Judeo-Arabic medical manuscript. Bloodletting, thought to balance the humors of the body, was an accepted medical treatment at the time.

Credits

Courtesy the Russian State Library, Moscow, OR F.71 #1036.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 5.

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Creator Bio

Atzlan ben Abraham al-Karaji

18th Century

Nothing is known about Atzlan ben Abraham al-Karaji, though his name suggests that he hailed from Karaj, a city near Tehran in present-day Iran. A Judeo-Arabic medical text is his only known work. 

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