94 EMBRYOLOGY FROM GALEN [pt. ii 



him into the Wisdom Literature, so those of the third century a.d. 

 were reading Galen and incorporating him into the Talmud. As for 

 God, he contributed the life, the soul, the expression of the face, the 

 functions of the different parts. This participation of three factors in 

 generation, male, female, and god, is exceedingly ancient, as may 

 be read in Robertson Smith. Some Talmudic writers held that 

 development began with the head, agreeing with Lactantius, and 

 others that it began at the navel, agreeing with Alcmaeon. Weber 

 has given an account of the Talmudic beliefs about the infusion of 

 the soul into the embryo. They do not seem to have embodied any 

 new or striking idea. 



Although the Talmud contained certain references of embryo- 

 logical interest, the first Hebrew treatise on biology was not composed 

 till the tenth century, when Asaph Judaeus or Asaph-ha-Yehudi 

 wrote on embryology about a.d. 950. His MSS. are exceedingly 

 rare, but, according to Gottheil's description, they contain several 

 sections on embryology. Steinschneider has given another descrip- 

 tion of them. For further details on the whole subject of Jewish 

 embryology see Macht. 



Arabian science, so justly famed for its successes in certain branches, 

 was not of great help to embryology. Abu-1-Hasan ' Ali ibn Sahl ibn 

 Rabban al-Tabari, a Moslem physician who flourished under the 

 Caliphate of al-Mutawakldl about a.d. 850, wrote a book called 

 The Paradise of Wisdom, in which an entire part was devoted to 

 embryology, all the more interesting as it is a mixture of Greek and 

 ancient Indian knowledge. Browne gives a description of it. Ibn 

 Rabban's contemporary, Thabit ibn Qurra, is also said to have 

 written on embryology. The great Avicenna, or, to give him his 

 proper name, Abu 'Ali-1-Hasan ibn 'Abdallah ibn Sina, who lived 

 from 978 to 1036, devoted certain chapters of his Canon Medicinae to 

 the development of the foetus, but added nothing to Galen. His 

 contemporaries, Abu-1-Qasim Maslama ibn Ahmad al-Majriti and 

 Arib ibn Said al-Katib, a Spanish Moslem, wrote treatises on the 

 generation of animals, but neither has survived. 



What was alchemy doing all this time? It was engaged on many 

 curious pursuits, but among them the interpretation of embryonic 

 development was not one. Alchemical texts before the tenth century 

 do make reference to eggs from time to time, but it is safe to say 

 never with any trace of an interest in the development of the embryo 



