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Yuhanna ibn Bukhtishu

Yuhanna ibn Bukhtishu (Johannes Bukhtishu) was a 9th century Persian physician from Khuzestan, Persia. ^[1].

Yuhanna ibn Bukhtishu‘ (or Bakhtishu‘) was a member of a prominent family of Nestorian Christian physicians originally from Jundishapur in Khuzastan who worked in Baghdad from the 8th through the 10th centuries. The name is composite of middle Persian Bukht (saved) ^[2] + Ishu (Jesus) which means saved by Jesus or one whose saviour is Jesus.

Yuhanna ibn Bukhtishu was the illegitimate son of Jabril Ibn Bukhtishu (d. 870CE) who was physician to the caliphs al-Ma'mun, al-Wathiq and Al-Mutawakkil in Baghdad.

Yuhanna, who worked in Baghdad about 892CE, is known to have written a treatise on astrological knowledge necessary for a physician, but the treatise is now lost. It is uncertain whether he was in fact the author of a treatise on materia medica that is attributed to him in the extant copies, of which The National Library of Medicine has one.

Yuhanna became Bishop of Mosul in 893 CE.

See also

• List of Iranian scientists
• Bukhtishu, Abdollah ibn.
• Bukhtishu, Gabriel ibn.
• Bukhtishu

Sources

For what information is known of his life and writings, see:

• Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abteilung I, Ergänzungsband vi, Abschnitt 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), p. 111
• Fuat Sezgin, Medizin-Pharmazie-Zoologie-Tierheilkunde bis ca 430 H., Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Band 3 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), p. 258
• Ibn Abi Usaybi'ah, 'Uyun al-anba' fi tabaqat al-atibba', ed. A. Müller, 2 vols. (Cairo and Königsberg: al-Matba'ah al-Wahbiyah, 1882-1884) vol. I p. 202.

For the family of physicians, see Lutz Richter-Bernburg, "Boktisu" in Encyclopedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 6+ vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1983 to present), vol. 4, pp 333-336.

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