HISTORY OF MEDICINE. 387 



their own, but had to seek them from the Greeks. They did 

 so ; and obtaining many translations from the Greek into their 

 own language, they laid a foundation for the pursuit of science 

 in several branches. In doing so, they were, by certain acci- 

 dents, led to receive the Aristotelian system of philosophy, and 

 of course to take the medical system of Galen, which is founded 

 upon that philosophy. For some time they were busied in this, 

 but still, labouring under various disadvantages with respect 

 to physic, they never attained to any great proficiency in the 

 science ; they made few corrections, and hardly any additions 

 to the system they had received. 



Under the dominion of the Saracens various schools of physic 

 were established, and they produced many writers ; all of whom, 

 from the language that they wrote in, are called Arabians. 

 They are all of one cast. From their living in countries which 

 had not before been the seats of sciences, they give us accounts 

 of some new diseases ; and, from the same circumstances, they 

 give some new articles of materia medica. They made also 

 some improvements in surgery, and they were casually the in- 

 ventors of chemistry; but the general system was still the same 

 as that of Galen, with very little new illustration. 



Nor did the knowledge of some new diseases and new remedies 

 make any change in the general state and character of the prac- 

 tice; on the contrary, it appears that we may suppose it to have 

 happened among them as has been observed on other occasions, 

 that a system or theory implicitly followed, gave a more timid 

 and inert practice, than even that of its original author. The 

 cultivation, therefore, of physic by the Arabians did not amount 

 to a great matter, but it was otherwise essentially useful, as it 

 was the means of preserving the knowledge, and of reviving 

 the study of it in the western parts of Europe, in which, as we 

 have said before, it had been almost entirely extinguished. If 

 the Arabs themselves, however, did so little, we have still less 

 to expect from the physicians of Europe, who, from the twelfth 

 to the sixteenth century, were servile imitators, and weak fol- 

 lowers of the Arabians ; and properly, on this account, denomi- 

 nated by Haller, the Arabistae. 



The Saracens, extending their conquests to the western parts 

 of Africa, from thence came over into Spain, and took pos- 



