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Donkey milk knowledge archive · Historical source
Avicenna’s “Canon of Medicine”: donkey milk in the chapter “De lacte”
In the “Canon of Medicine”, completed around 1025, Ibn Sina describes donkey milk as thin and low in butterfat. In the Latin edition of 1507 he recommends it for cough and wasting and – “so it is said” – as a mouth rinse for the teeth and gums.
- Author
- Ibn Sina (Avicenna, 980–1037)
- Work
- Canon of Medicine (al-Qanun fi al-tibb), Latin translation by Gerard of Cremona, printed Venice 1507
- Passage
- Book II, tractate 2, ch. 444 (ccccxliiij) “De lacte”, fol. 129r–129v of the Venice 1507 edition
- Time & place
- c. 1025 (Arabic original); Latin print Venice 1507 · Persia (Hamadan/Isfahan)
- Type of source
- Medical textbook
In the original words
What the original says
et lac asinarum etiam minus existens butyrosum est subtile.
And the milk of she-asses, which likewise contains little butterfat, is thin [light].
Lac asininum secundum quod dicitur cum colluitur ex eo os confirmat dentes et gingivam
Donkey milk, so it is said, strengthens the teeth and gums when the mouth is rinsed with it.
Lac asininum et caprinum bona sunt tussi et extenuationi et sputo sanguinis
Donkey and goat milk are good for cough, wasting and the spitting of blood.
English rendering: our own translation by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, following the sense of the text.
Background
Who, when, what kind of text
Ibn Sina, known in the West as Avicenna, was a physician and philosopher in early 11th-century Persia. His “Canon of Medicine” in five books arranged Greek and Arabic knowledge into a coherent system. Gerard of Cremona translated it into Latin in Toledo in the 12th century. Until the 17th century the Canon was a central textbook at European universities.
Book II deals with simple remedies in the alphabetical order of their Arabic names. We quote the Latin print of 1507 from the workshop of Paganinus de Paganinis in Venice. The text is set in Gothic type with many abbreviations; we have expanded these and cautiously standardised the spelling. The linked copy belongs to the Universidad Complutense in Madrid and was digitised by Google.
Content
What the source reports about donkey milk
The chapter “De lacte” opens with a theory of milk: it consists of three parts, a watery, a cheesy and a buttery one. Camel’s milk shortly after birth has little butter and cheese and is very thin; likewise the milk of she-asses is low in butterfat and “subtle”. A little later Avicenna ranks the cheese content: lowest in camel’s milk, then in mare’s and finally in donkey milk.
After the general sections come uses arranged by parts of the body. Under “teeth” he states that donkey milk strengthens the teeth and gums when the mouth is rinsed with it – with the qualifying phrase “secundum quod dicitur”, so it is said. Under “breathing and chest” he names donkey and goat milk as good for cough, wasting and the spitting of blood.
Avicenna also stresses that milk should be taken fresh, ideally straight after milking, and that its character depends on pasture and season – ideas already found in Dioscorides.
At a glance
Figures & facts from the source
Critical assessment
How reliable is this source?
Source value
Early print of 1507, verifiable leaf by leaf as a digital copy, but a translation from the Arabic. The expansion of individual abbreviations (e.g. “ét” as “etiam”) is an editorial reading; the meaning of the passages is clear.
Transmission
The statement on the mouth rinse corresponds almost verbatim to Dioscorides (II 70); Avicenna himself marks it as hearsay. The Canon passed such statements on to European universities, where they were taught into the early modern period.
Today’s assessment
The observation that donkey milk is low in fat is consistent with modern analyses of its composition. The therapeutic statements, by contrast, belong to the doctrine of their time, do not substantiate any effect and cannot be applied to today; donkey milk is a food.
Our assessment
Avicenna combines an early “milk chemistry” of water, cheese and butter with uses taken from tradition. We find it particularly interesting that his description of donkey milk as thin and low in fat matches what modern analyses show.
References
Sources to check
- Primary sourceLiber canonis, Venice: Paganinus de Paganinis 1507, fol. 129r: beginning of the chapter “De lacte” (archive.org, copy Universidad Complutense Madrid)
https://archive.org/details/libercanonisaui00avicgoog/page/n266/mode/1up - Further passageSame edition, fol. 129v: mouth rinse, and cough and wasting
https://archive.org/details/libercanonisaui00avicgoog/page/n267/mode/1up - Modern researchReview of donkey milk composition in the DON DONKEY’S research archive
https://dondonkeys.com/pages/studie-131-zusammensetzung-eselsmilch-review-studie-2025
More sources and studies in the research archive. Summarised by the DON DONKEY’S editorial team, as of November 2026.