STANDARDS FOR MEDICINES— COOK 437 



and then the Arabs swept on through Spain and dominated most of the 

 habitable world for 500 years. Bagdad became an important center 

 of learning and also Cordova at a later period. 



ARABIAN PERIOD 



Fortunately, some manuscripts of Hippocrates and Galen had 

 escaped the wholesale destruction of the libraries of Alexandria and 

 were now translated into the Arabic together with other Greek 

 scientific and philosophic writings. The early intolerance of the 

 Arabian caliphs was abandoned, and with the establishment of 

 universities at both Bagdad and Cordova, teachers from the western 

 world, Christians, Jews, and Pagans, were encouraged to bring there 

 the sciences in which they were interested. Medicine, pharmacy, 

 and chemistry were especially encouraged, and under Caliph Haroun 

 al-Raschid, about A. D. 780, hospitals and dispensaries and separate 

 pharmacies were established in Bagdad. 



An outstanding contribution to medical standards came about this 

 time from Mesne Senior, who was head of the Medical School of 

 Bagdad during the reign of Haroun al-Raschid. His formulary was 

 translated into Latin as late as the fifteenth century and became the 

 model for the first London pharmacopoeia. He was opposed to the 

 violent purgatives of earlier medicine and is said to have introduced 

 the mild laxatives senna, cassia fistula, tamarinds, and jujube. His 

 pupil, Johannitus, translated Galen's books into the Arabic, from 

 which they were later translated into Latin. 



The head of the hospital at Bagdad in 870 was a famous physician- 

 pharmacist commonly known as Rhazes. He wrote voluminously on 

 medicine and pharmacy and especially exposed many impostors. 

 Two hundred years later another teacher, Mesue Junior, developed 

 in Bagdad, whose work entitled "Grabadin", which was an abbrevia- 

 tion of an Arabic word meaning compound medicines, was used as a 

 pharmacists' manual for 500 years, going through hundreds of editions. 

 It consisted of many formulas arranged in classes, and many prepara- 

 tions of the earlier European pharmacopoeias are traced back to this 

 formulary. 



Another eminent physician of the Arabian period was Avicenna, 

 of the tenth century, and also Maimonides, the latter born at Cordova 

 in 1135. Maimonides is most famous for his oath and prayer, setting 

 forth an idealistic code of ethics for the physician and the pharmacist. 

 It is almost as famous as the Hippocratic oath. 



Contemporary with Haroun al-Raschid and the golden era of Bag- 

 dad, Charlemagne reigned. He encouraged the growing of herbs and 

 the making of medicines by the monks. The herb gardens of the 

 monasteries of Europe during the eighth and ninth centuries developed 



