S2 LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 



Al Razi, or Rhazes as he is commonly desig- 

 nated, is a name of which Arabian literature has 

 reason to be proud. He flourished in the tenth cen- 

 tury, and had the reputation of being deeply skilled 

 in almost all sciences as well as in medicine. He 

 was appointed director of the hospital at Rhe, in 

 Irak, his native city, and afterward delivered lec- 

 tures in the College of Bagdad, in which he was by 

 far the most distinguished professor of his time. 

 His fame rests chiefly on his medical writings, the 

 principal of which, Alhawi or the Continent, com- 

 prehended his account of diseases. He wrote, among 

 other works, a small but curious tract on quacks, 

 whom he characterizes with a fidelity that makes his 

 descriptions applicable to the pretending knaves of 

 modern times. This treatise is remarkable, from 

 being the earliest medical work in which Eau de vie 

 is mentioned, as also different kinds of beer manu- 

 factured from rice, barley, and rye. Another merit 

 of this distinguished scholar, and what perhaps 

 above all has tended to heighten his reputation as 

 an author, is his treatise on small-pox and measles, 

 being the first account of these diseases ever given. 

 His remarks on climate, season, situation, and consti- 

 tution, denote the accurate and philosophic observer. 

 Indeed, from the minute and excellent descriptions of 

 disease to be found in his works, embracing not only 

 the more commonly known, but others of rare oc- 

 currence, and some recorded for the first time, such 

 as tic douloureux and hypochondria, there can be as 

 little doubt that his opportunities of observation 

 were immense, as that his genius enabled him to 

 turn his experience to the best account. 



But in learning and reputation, Rhazes was sur- 

 passed by the famous Abdallah ibn Sina, a name 

 which the Jews abbreviated into Abensina, and the 

 Christians into the well-known appellation of Avi- 

 :;enna. This Prince of Physicians, as the Arabs 

 ienominate him, was a person nearly as remarkable 

 *or the extent and variety of his precocious attain- 



