1 6 THE BIRTH AND GROWTH OF SCIENCE IN MEDICINE, 



the great libraries were neglected, or in some cases 

 destroyed, and an immense amount of the literature of 

 Greece and Rome perished beyond recall. Medicine 

 shared the fate of the other sciences, and what was not 

 forgotten became debased by admixture with Eastern 

 magic and superstition. The dominant power in Europe 

 during this period was the Church, and although its 

 conservatism had a wholly deadening influence as regards 

 the advance of science, it did much to preserve the culture 

 of classical times. The mediaeval monasteries were the 

 storehouses of learning, and though the study of pagan 

 writings was not encouraged, there was nothing to prevent 

 a good monk of literary tastes from making copies of 

 ancient manuscripts. This was one channel by which 

 some knowledge of classical medicine was handed down 

 the dark ages, but there was another of even greater 

 importance. In the seventh century occurred the last of 

 the four known Arab migrations which have overwhelmed 

 neighbouring peoples : it spread not only over Western 

 Asia, but all round the Mediterranean. Whatever may 

 have been the primitive culture of these Arab invaders, 

 they presently acquired a high degree of civilisation. 

 They were a keen-witted race, quick to assimilate the 

 culture with which they came in contact, and this was 

 largely Greek in origin. For some hundreds of years the 

 Moorish Empire in Spain was far in advance of the rest 

 of Europe in literature, in science, and in medicine. The 

 best medical works of classical antiquity were translated 

 into Arabic, and it is by this strange route that much 

 has come down to us which would otherwise have been 

 irretrievably lost. The Arabs were skilled in criticism 

 and dialectics, but they were not great original thinkers. 

 They left us descriptions of certain diseases unknown 

 to the ancients, such as measles and smallpox, but 

 medical science o\\es them relatively little. Their chief 

 share in medicine was to absorb and transmit the 

 knowledge of the Greeks. 



An end came at last to the dark ages of Europe, and 



