Machine summary:
In India generally not much value is laid upon the correct rendering of proper names when written in Latin charac• ters, but I believe we owe it to the great scientist that we should write his name with scientific· accuracy.
Unfortunately the copy made from the ancient manuscript, once at Ali• garh, is far from satisfactory and marred by an Urdu trans• lation being written in many cases between the lines.
In the first place he must have possessed a good knowledge of many languages, for in the books on stones and metals as well as in the book on drugs he generally tells us the names in various other languages such as Greek, Syrian, Persian, Turkish and Indian.
(View the image of this page) book translated from Arabic into Persian to see how all · the beauty and clearness is gone and he adds Persian is> as a language, only good for gossip at night or for fairy• tales about the Khosroes.
The main portion of the text was in the hand• writing of the Shaikh Ahmad, mentioning all the well• known drugs found in the books ; on the margins was scribbled badly legible in the hand of the Ustadh in lines placed variously and with letters of defective script elu• cidations of those drugs and the mention of strange drugs, also the commentation of the various names and the differ• ent meanings.