This article reports a preliminary study of Abu-l-Ala: his life, his works and his significance as a writer, scientist and physician. All existing Arab manuscripts on the Kitāb muŷarrabāt al-jawāss are cited, and Arabic manuscript no. 520 from the Bodleian Library in Oxford is described. Finally, the translation is given, and folios 41v., 42r., 52v., 53r., 81v., 82v., 93r., 94v., 97v., 100r. and 100v. reproduced, from the Bodleian Library manuscript of the Kitāb muŷarrabāt al-jawāss. This material includes the peculiarities and therapeutic features of plants and animals such as elecampane, love-in-a-mist, ivy, the goat, the ostrich, the hoopoe and laudanum. The text reproduced here, as well as the work in general, contains large doses of quackery.