366 HISTOHY OF BOTANY. 



extract from their Syriac sources ; and at length to write works of their 

 own. And thus arose vast libraries, such as that of Cordova, which 

 contained 250,000 volumes. 



The Nestorians are stated 18 to have first established among the Arabs 

 those collections of medicinal substances (Apothecce), from which our 

 term Apothecary is taken ; and to have written books (Dispensatoria) 

 containing systematic instructions for the employment of these medica- 

 ments ; a word which long continued to be implied in the same sense, 

 and which we also retain, though in a modified application (Dis- 

 pensary). 



The directors of these collections were supposed to be intimately 

 acquainted with plants ; and yet, in truth, the knowledge of plants 

 owed but little to them ; for the Arabic Dioscorides was the source and 

 standard of their knowledge. The flourishing commerce of the Ara- 

 bians, their numerous and distant journeys, made them, no doubt, 

 practically acquainted with the productions of lands unknown to the 

 Greeks and Eomans. Their Nestorian teachers had established Chris- 

 tianity even as far as China and Malabar; and their travellers 

 mention" the camphor of Sumatra, the aloe-wood of Socotra near Java, 

 the tea of China. But they never learned the art of converting their 

 practical into speculative knowledge. They treat of plants only in so 

 far as their use in medicine is concerned, 18 and followed Dioscorides in 

 the description, and even in the order of the plants, except when they 

 arrange them according to the Arabic alphabet. With little clearness 

 of view, they often mistake what they read : 19 thus when Dioscorides 

 says that ligusticon grows on the Apennine, a mountain not far from 

 the Alps ; Avicenna, misled by a resemblance of the Arabic letters, 

 quotes him as saying that the plant grows on AkaMs, a mountain near 

 Egypt. 



It is of little use to enumerate such writers. One of the most noted 

 of them was Mesue, physician of the Calif of Kahirah. His w.ork, 

 which was translated into Latin at a later period, was entitled, On Sim- 

 ple Medicines ; a title which was common to many medical treatises, 

 from the time of Galen in the second century. Indeed, of this oppo- 

 sition of simple and compound medicines, we still have traces in OUT 

 language : 



* Sprengel, i. 205. T Sprengel, i. 206 



Ji Ib. i. 207. " Ib. i. 211 



