96 LITERATURE OP THE ARABS. 



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 diiferent 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 smallpox 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- 

 cenna. This Prince of Physicians, as the Arabs 

 denominate him, was a person nearly as remarkable 

 for the extent and variety of his precocious attain- 

 ments as the Admirable Crichton ; while in the me- 

 dical world he attained a celebrity rivalled only by 

 the fame of Hippocrates and Galen. He was born 

 in the year 980 at a small village near Bokhara. 

 Removing to Bagdad for the prosecution of his 



