Al-Muwaffak
Abu Mansur Muwaffak ibn Ali al-Harawi was a 10th century Persian physician. He flourished in Herat under the Samanid prince Mansur I ibn Nuh, who ruled from 961 to 976. He was apparently the first to think of compiling a treatise on materia medica in Persian; he travelled extensively in Persia and India to obtain the necessary information. He wrote, between 968 and 977, the Book of the Remedies (Kitab al-abnyia 'an Haqa'iq al-adwiya), which is the oldest prose work in modern Persian. It deals with 585 remedies (of which 466 are derived from plants, 75 from minerals, 44 from animals), classified into four groups according to their action. Abu Mansur distinguished between sodium carbonate and potassium carbonate, and seems to have had some knowledge about arsenious oxide, cupric oxide, silicic acid, and antimony; he knew the toxilogical effects of copper and lead compounds, the depilatory vertue of quicklime, the composition of plaster of Paris and its surgical use.
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