Maimonides' Commentary on the Aphorisms of Hippocrates, vol. 2, Maimonides' medical writings

version goes dangerously astray: in ch.9, the Elders (sic) are not a specific group but merely older physicians as contrasted with the youthful Galen. Yet, given the editor's unfamiliarity with Greek and with the institutions of the Greek world, such errors of English translation are remarkably few, and the alert Galenist will be able with a little thought to work out the words of Galen that lie behind the double translation. The editor would, however, have been better advised not to attempt a commentary single-handed, for his notes are full or error and rarely deal with the major problems raised by this new text: e.g. p. 143, the kings are not the Asclepiads, but such as Attalus III; 144, Hippocratic texts from the fifth century BC hardly attest the decline of medicine in Rome; 161, the note on 84.13, taken over from De Lacy's commentary on CMG V.4,1,2,282, is irrelevant since the Greek word elucidated does not appear in the Hippocratic quotation under discussion. In place of this weak commentary, it would have been better to have had a more detailed discussion of the role of this and similar treatises in the Arabic world: cf. Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, p. 53, for a late allusion in the hisba literature. Yet, in the final analysis, these criticisms are more than counterbalanced by Dr Iskandar's great services in bringing this important text to light, and in making it accessible to those students of Galen who lack Arabic. Without his labours, they would not be able to take issue once more with Galen at his most infuriating.