58 Dr. Ainslie on SmalUpoa: and Inoculation in Eastern Countries. 



tagiousness of both small-pox and measles* (the last disease, however, he 

 looked upon as no other than what he calls a bilious small-pox); Avenzoar, 

 who was a native of Seville and a cotemporary of Avicenna ; Constantius, 

 who lived towards the end of the eleventh century, and was born at Car- 

 thage : he was a medical practitioner of great note, having studied at 

 Babylon as well as Bagdad ; Averrhoes, a Spanish Moor, who wrote on 

 Medicine in the twelfth century : he translated Aristotle, and published a 

 work entitled ColUget ; Albucasis, who gave to the world a book named 

 Al Tarif, more in repute for some judicious surgical opinions than any thing 

 new it contained : he also wrote in the twelfth century ; Gilbert, who com- 

 posed a compendium of medicine, and which is the oldest English medical 

 tract now extant : Dr. Friend conjectured that he flourished about the end 

 of the thirteenth century, in the reign of tlie first Edward, though we have 

 no testimony that, on the subject of small-pox, he brought forward one 

 original idea ; after him came Gentili of Foligno, and Hcrculaneus, both of 

 whose writings are involved in all the erroneous doctrines of Avicenna ; and 

 lastly, John of Gaddesden, who was autiior of the famous dissertation on 

 medicine known by the appellation of the "English Rose," and who, though 

 he was principal physician to Edward 11., has, in his chapter on small-pox 

 and measles, omitted few of the mistakes of the Arabians. 



From the fifteenth up to the middle of the seventeenth century, the 

 science of medicine continued gradually to improve. Many ridiculous 

 theories, however, regarding the variolous disease were broached during that 

 period ; till, as we have seen, our distinguished countryman, Sydenham, 

 dispelling those clouds which had long darkened the medical horizon, 

 brought to light a new era in physic : nor was the brilliancy of his rejnita- 

 tion, as has been well said by an able writer,t in any way obscured by 

 his immediate successors, great as they were, EtmuUer, Boerhaave, and 

 Cullen. 



Perhaps no disease, to which the human frame is subject, has excited more 

 laborious discussion than the small-pox ; yet, after all, little of a positive 

 nature has been ascertained respecting it, beyond the facts, that it is pro- 

 duced by a specific contagion, or a matter, as it has been called, sui generis; 

 that it rarely happens that the same person is attacked twice by it ; that it 

 is distinguished into a mild and malignant sort ; and lastly, that the Almighty 



* Vide Avicen. Canon, lib. iv. torn. 1. cap. 6. f Mr. Moore. 



