A liver disease, studied in Baghdad, with its summary in Arabic on the reverse

Bilharzia, also called schistosomiasis, is a disease caused by a parasite, and one of the things it can do is scar the liver, which doctors call fibrosis. In the middle of the twentieth century Ahmed H. Shamma, professor of pathology at Baghdad University and director of the Ministry of Health’s Central Pathology Institute, set out to document the disease as it appeared in Iraq: how it worked, how common it was and what it did.

His study follows the parasite’s life cycle, the incidence of infection and the damage to the liver, including portal cirrhosis, through experiments and work under the microscope to what it all meant for patients. It grew out of the thesis that earned him his medical doctorate, with distinction, at Cairo University, and it was printed in Baghdad in 1965 by Shafiek Press, helped by a grant from Baghdad University. The book is made to be read from both ends: the main text in English from one cover, and a seven-page summary in Arabic from the other.

This copy was given to a library and later withdrawn, and its covers show it: yellowed and abraded, with traces of tape and labels and old shelf marks crossed out, the Arabic cover scuffed and creased. The leaves inside appear sound in the openings photographed; it has not been fully collated.