[The issue of continuity in ancient horse medicine: the treatment of diseases of the extremities described in the Kităb al-furŭsĭya wa-l-baytara by Muhammad ibn Ya'qŭb ibn ahĭ Hizăm al-Huttulĭ].

Since the late 9th century, scientific literature in Arabian language, based on the translation and compilation of works of the Classical, Persian and Indian culture considerably increased. This also applies to the field of veterinary medicine, as is illustrated by a number of hippological and hippiatric treatises. Affinities between texts on horse medicine in Antiquity and in Arabian literature have been mentioned by philologists, but the degree of dependence on classical texts could not be verified due to the lack of translations of the Arabian texts. In this respect, the oldest available text about hippology and hippiatry, the Kităb al-furŭsĭya wa-l-baytara written by Muhammad ibn Ya'qŭb ibn ahĭ equerry at the court of caliph al-Mu'tasim, al-Mutawakkil or al-Mu 'tadid during the second half of the 9th century, is of particular importance. In this contribution we focus upon seven major diseases affecting the distal extremities in horses. The contents have been analysed from an historical and a medical point of view and compared with those from a representative selection of medieval treatises that circulated in the Mediterranean region and the Orient up to the 14'h century. This comparison reveals obvious similarities between ibn ahĭ Hizăms text and later hippiatric treatises, written in medieval Arabic. Parallels to the texts of the authors of the late Antiquity and the medieval Occident, however, can not be observed. The Kităb al-furŭsĭya wa-l-baytara thus evidences that Arabian hippiatry had its own tradition, at least when dealing with the diseases of the extremities.