NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. i 7 



useful sanitary and hygienic ideas, which had probably been first 

 evolved by the Egyptians, and from them transmitted to the 

 world mainly through the sacred books attributed to Moses ; and 

 both Jews and Mohammedans, while fettered by various super- 

 stitions of their own, were far less influenced by the mediaeval 

 development of miracles than were their Christian contemporaries. 



The Jewish scholars became especially devoted to medical 

 science. To them is largely due the creation of the School of Sa- 

 lerno, which we find flourishing in the tenth century. Judged by 

 our present standards, its work was poor indeed, but, compared 

 with other medical instruction of the time, it was vastly superior : 

 it developed hygienic principles especially, and brought medicine 

 upon a higher plane. 



Still more important is the rise of the School of Montpellier ; 

 this was due almost entirely to Jewish physicians, and it devel- 

 oped medical studies to a yet higher point, doing much to create 

 a medical profession worthy of the name throughout southern 

 Europe. 



As to the Arabians, we find them from the tenth to the four- 

 teenth century, especially in Spain, giving much thought to medi- 

 cine, and to chemistry as subsidiary to it. About the beginning 

 of the ninth century, when the greater Christian writers were 

 supporting fetich by theology, Almamon, the Moslem, declared, 

 " They are the elect of God, his best and most useful servants, 

 whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational fac- 

 ulties." The influence of Avicenna, the translator of the works 

 of Aristotle, from the beginning of the eleventh century extended 

 throughout all Europe. The Arabians were indeed much fettered 

 by tradition in medical science, but their translations of Hip- 

 pocrates and Galen preserved to the world the best thus far de- 

 veloped in medicine, and still better were their contributions 

 to pharmacy ; these remain of value to the present hour.* 



Various Christian laymen also rose above the prevailing the- 

 ologic atmosphere far enough to see the importance of promoting 

 scientific development. First among these we may name the Em- 

 peror Charlemagne ; he and his great minister, Alcuin, not only 

 promoted medical studies in the schools they founded, but also 

 made provision for the establishment of botanic gardens in which 



* For the great services rendered to the development of medicine by the Jews, see 

 Monteil, Medecine en France, p. 58 ; also the historians of medicine generally. For 

 the quotation from Almamon, see Gibbon, vol. x, p. 42. For the services of both Jews 

 and Arabians, see Bedarride, Histoire des Juifs, p. 115. Also Sismondi, Histoire des 

 Francais, cited by Fort, pp. 449, 450. For Arabians, especially, see Rosseuw Saint- 

 Hilaire, Histoire d'Espagne, Paris, 1844, vol. iii, pp. 191 el seq. For the tendency of the 

 Mosaic books to insist on hygienic rather than therapeutical treatment, and its consequences 

 among Jewish physicians, see Sprengcl, but especially Fredault, p. 14. 

 vol. xxxix. 2 



