Persian-language manuscript, 95 pages in red and black with 10 full-page polychrome illuminations in gold and silver, including one on a double page. Dated from the early Qadjar period (ca 1800).
20th-century blue velvet binding. 2 endpapers on each side of the boards with 3 holes from the textile laces (now missing) that used to hold the manuscript. Some wear to the velvet binding..On fol. 2, restoration erasing some letters. Leaf 3, restoration in margin. Leaf 7, ink smudged in one area. Worm holes on 4 leaves to the inner margin. Sheet 26, missing outer margin, with several paper cuts. Leaf 39, restoration along outer margin. Red, black and blue writing in the margins on several occasions, including the name Hamit Khalil. Maranuz Sharustan, Hamiyat Khalifa, Al-Sawab-Shab, other manuscript inscriptions are used as chapter titles indicating cures for various body parts: heart, chest, neck, methods...
The treatise gives numerous recipes using plants and seeds (but also opium, salts...) to maintain the good health of organs, stomach, heart and skin. Other parts deal with cosmetics, in particular the wearing of the hijab for women, and gynecology, in accordance with the theory of "humours", describing the uterus as a humid environment that tempers the fire of sperm.
The superbly crafted illuminations engage the reader in a vision of a spiritual world with multiple cultural symbols evoking an ideal, ordered world, including various medicine practices. These include an image of women preparing before bloodletting with lancets and a basin, and several images of women assisting a sick person with fans to expel impure air and lancets, or some handing beverages. The first image is perhaps the most emblematic of all, showing the sovereign in his temple and 3 rows of men each carrying an object, the first a rose, the second a fan or palm, the third a lancet, with a small fountain at the bottom center of the image separating the 2 rows of 3 men. Note the hunting scene on the double page, a typical royal activity evoking the health of body and mind through exercise.