ARABIAN AND MEDIEVAL SURGERY 469 



male lie advises a vaginal tampon of wool, or of a blown up sheep's 

 bladder. Avicenna, the author of the " Canons/' was a medical rather 

 than a surgical writer, and his text-book was used for nearly five cen- 

 turies after it was written. 



Bagdad and Cordova had now become the destination of many a 

 European scholar. The number of anatomical terms of Arabian origin 

 translated into Latin, according to Hyrtl, is surprising, and this more 

 especially in view of his assertion that " the Arabs paid very little atten- 

 tion to anatomy, and, of course, because of the prohibition of the Koran, 

 added nothing to it." He continues: 



Whatever they knew they took from the Greeks and from Galen. . . . 

 They delighted in theory rather than practise. 



This is a terse summing up of the general influence of Arabian 

 medicine. Taken as a whole, the Arabs were copyists and dialecticians ; 

 by their very virtues of erudition and scholarship they impressed upon 

 their medieval successors the supremity of Galenical tradition rather 

 than the desire for anatomical and bedside inquiry into the cause of 

 disease. 



Constantine Africanus, who was first a traveler and a student, next a 

 professor in the University of Salerno, and finally a Benedictine monk 

 in the great abbey of Monte Cassino, is the connecting link between 

 Arabian and western medicine. His familiarity with oriental languages, 

 and his connection later with the great Benedictine order celebrated for 

 its libraries and zeal in copying books, gave him unique opportunities 

 for the translation and circulation of his medical writings. He was 

 born at Carthage early in the eleventh century, and died near its close. 

 After his travels he acted as physician and secretary to Duke Robert of 

 Salerno, and was made professor of medicine at the university. After 

 teaching for ten years he retired to the monastery, obtaining there both 

 the quiet and the material assistance which he needed in order to pass 

 his heritage of knowledge on to succeeding generations. The "Liber 

 Pantegni," a translation of Ali-Ben-el Abbas, as well as certain works 

 of Hippocrates and Galen, were among his best-known books. His orig- 

 inal work is better known through the writings of his students Afflacius, 

 Bartholemew and numerous others. 



In view of this it is a seeming contradiction to have Gurlt assert that 

 the surgery of the Salernitian school was not a continuation of Arabian 

 surgery and that the surgeons of Salerno were not influenced by the 

 Arabian commentators. Yet he cites Roger's writings in evidence, and 

 declares that such authorities as are quoted come directly from the 

 Greek, while a good portion of the work rests on the writer's own 

 experiences. 



Contrary to popular belief, surgery at this time was not an unlearned 

 profession, for there were many surgeons connected with the early uni- 



