LAUSR

Pormann discusses the contribution of Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razı, known in the West as Rhazes, to his use of patients groups (cohorts) in clinical practice which was a pioneering and significant contribution of this clinician and philosopher to Medicine. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this well researched and written article; I would like to offer two additional comments. First, the dose of cinnamon in the ‘holy remedy’ recommended for bilious diseases is five dirham in the Arabic text and not 10 as in the documented English translation. My second comment is on the interpretation of the expression (fi akhiri amrihim) in patients with a severe warm type of smallpox. The expression in Arabic is often used to indicate a terminal or fatal outcome rather than the author’s proposed explanations.