24 HISTORY OF BOTANY. 



might be sole possessor of the knowledge which he had 

 drawn from it, and could give it out afterwards for 

 his own. 



At the age of 18 he is said to have gained a perfect know- 

 ledge of the whole circle of the Sciences, — to have known in 

 fact all that could be known in his day from books. Pity- 

 that such a gigantic intellect, and such untiring industry, 

 should not have been more devoted to independent 

 research. 



It is not necessary for us to trace all the vicissitudes of 

 Avicenna's eventful life ; at one time a Kadi held in great 

 esteem, at another in disgrace, and concealed to preserve his 

 life ; but, through it all, doctoring, lecturing, and writing, 

 first at one court and then at another, until his death at 

 Ramadhan, 1037. Though naturally of a strong constitution 

 Avicenna gave way to excesses which damaged his health, 

 and probably led to his death at the comparatively early 

 age of 57. 



Dr. Nichol (in the * Imperial Dictionary of Universal 

 Biography ') speaks thus of his writings : — " Of his gigantic 

 works — numbering more than a hundred — any one was suffi- 

 cient to establish a reputation; nor was any Science known 

 in his time which in some manner he did not advance." 

 Wiirstenfeld gives a list of one hundred and five of his works, 

 and remarks that some of them are very voluminous, while 

 others are only short treatises of one or two sheets. 



Serapion, or as he is usually called Serapion the younger, to 

 distinguish him from the Syrian physician of the same name 

 already mentioned, cannot have flourished earlier than the 

 end of the eleventh century, for he quotes Ebn Wafid 

 (Abenguefit), a physician of Toledo, who was living 10G8. 

 The Arab biographers and historians give no account of 

 him. He wrote a work which has been translated into 

 Latin under the title ' De Medicamentis Simplicibus,' or 



