ANATOMY IN THE MIDDLE AGES-A.D. 400 TO 1400 61 



began to shine through the prevailing clouds during the end of 

 the Middle Ages. 



C. The Arabs and the Reawakening 



The Arabs, a pastoral and nomadic people, noted for their 

 intertribal feuds and conquests, became welded into a unified na- 

 tion. They settled down, developed a religious enthusiasm and 

 cultivated the arts and peace. Both Bagdad (Iraq) and Cordova 

 (Spain) became centers of learning where the wisdom of the 

 Greeks was studied and expounded with the help of Syrians, Jews 

 and Nestorian Christians. Abstracts, commentaries and treatises 

 were published; all were translations of the work of Hippocrates, 

 Aristotle and Galen, which were written in a language which had 

 become dead. They added little to the sum total of knowledge. 



Three men especially played a leading role in this develop- 

 ment: Rhazes (850-923), Avicenna (980-1037), and Constantine 

 Africanus (1010-1087). These men were compilers rather than 

 original investigators. Rhazes wrote 226 books. Avicenna wrote 

 one entitled, Book of Canon in Medicine, based on Greek writ- 

 ings which was later translated into Latin. It was more lucidly 

 written than Galen's Anatomy and it overshadowed the latter's 

 authority for four centuries. Constantine translated thirty-seven 

 books, mostly those written by Hippocrates and Galen. These 

 were introduced into the western nations as early as the 11th Cen- 

 tury and constituted the first glimmer of a new dawn; they had 

 much to do with a revival of the ethical Hippocratic spirit so 

 prevalent during the pre-Christian era. 



The lack of an investigative spirit constituted the weakest part 

 of Arabian medicine. Original works were not done. The theo- 

 cratic basis of the Arabian government stood in the way. The 

 Koran was the source and authority for all knowledge; anatom- 

 ical dissection was forbidden; even drawings and sculpture of 

 the human body were not permitted. It was held that the soul suf- 

 fered if the body was incised before or after death. They knew 

 Galen's Anatomy and not much more; this lasted until modern 

 times. As late as 1830, the Arabs had only a pristine knowledge 

 of the subject. 



