In this study we have compared an Arabic translation with a well-edited Greek text, in the preparation of which, moreover, the editors have found no evidence of any major lacunae in their MSS, and which we may suppose to correspond closely with Galen's original composition. It was, consequently, from the first improbable that we should make any very striking discoveries: nothing was to be expected at all comparable with the indubitable evidence for the inversion of a leaf in the codex from which are derived our Greek manuscripts of Galen's An in arteriis natura sanguis contineatur (Furley and Wilkie, CR xxii [1972] 164–7).

For anyone interested in the Arabic translations of Galen's works there was, however, a compensatory advantage in the possibility thus presented of assessing the quality of the Arabic version. The reputation of the translator, Hunain ibn Isḥāq, has, indeed, already been long established; and we were prepared to find his translation at the least respectable; it is safe to say, however, that we have found it uniformly excellent.