MEDICAL SCIENCES. 143 



of the Caliphs of the East, and at Cordova (Fig. 99), the new capital of the 

 Caliphs of Spain, were simultaneously illustrated, at long intervals, by Hesue 

 the elder, John Damascenus or Serapion, Leo the Philosopher, Rhazes, and 

 Ali, surmirned the Magician, the last mentioned of whom apparently embodied 

 all the medical science of the Arabs, which reached its apogee in the tenth 

 century by appropriating to the climate and to the customs of the country 

 the principles of Galen, and basing his system upon a mass of observations 

 which he continued up to the age of a hundred. Greek medicine had under- 

 gone a complete metamorphosis through its gradual fusion with that of the 

 Arabs, just as pathological questions varied in their object and character 

 under the influence of the new habits and requirements of modern civilisa- 

 tion. 



In the West medical science was still very backward, though It had not 

 to contend, as in the East, with- a religious fanaticism which forbade all 

 kinds of drawings, even those necessary to a scientific description of the 

 diseases of the human body, and which punished as a crime the dissection of 

 a corpse. The reason was that it had no protectors since the disappearance 

 of the last of the Goths in the eighth century, and it was scarcely taught at 

 all in the schools of Southern Gaul. The monastic orders had monopolized 

 the practice of medicine, and, as a natural consequence of the sacred mission 

 intrusted to them by their founder, they attempted to combine remedies for 

 the body with remedies for the mind. Prayer, holy water, the touching of 

 relics, and pilgrimages to holy places were the general accessories of monkish 

 therapeutics, which relied upon Providence for the cure of the sick, upon 

 whom, however, every care and attention was lavished. The monks also 

 possessed a number of pharmaceutical receipts which were in daily use, 

 though they were derived rather from tradition than from science ; they were 

 likewise acquainted with the medicinal properties of herbs, which they used 

 t'rrely for wounds and sores. 



It was not till the close of the eighth century that there was a regular 

 course of medical instruction, and it was organized at Monte Casino and 

 Salerno, in the kingdom of Naples ; and the principles of the teaching 

 imparted there were drawn up in the shape of aphorisms, which remained 

 known long after the schools themselves had disappeared. At this epoch 

 iiiiiny ecclesiastics Italian, French, Belgian, and German commissioned by 

 the Holy See as Apostolic Legates, went to England, Scotland, and Ireland, 



