LITERATURE OF THE ARABS. 101 



Botany, as subsidiary to medicine, was cultiva- 

 ted by the Arabs with considerable success. This 

 science they advanced far beyond the state in which 

 it had been left by Dioscorides, who flourished 

 about the commencement of the Christian era. 

 His herbal they enriched by the addition of 2000 

 plants ; and their knowledge of the vegetable world 

 enabled them to insert in their pharmacopoeias se- 

 veral remedies which had been unknown to the 

 Greeks. Rhazes, AH Abbas, and Avicenna, are 

 names that adorn the annals of this elegant and 

 useful study ; but the most distinguished of all the 

 Arabian botanists was Ibn Al Beithar, a native 

 of Malaga. In his zeal for herborizing he travelled 

 over every part of Europe, Africa, and Asia; in- 

 spected and analyzed every thing that was rare, cu- 

 rious, or valuable, in the three kingdoms of nature; 

 and on his return published the result of his inves- 

 tigations in three books : First, on the nature and 

 virtues of plants j second, on metals and minerals ; 

 and third, on animals. He died at Damascus in 

 the year 1248, in which city he held the dignity of 

 vizier. Casiri mentions another eminent botanist, 

 Ibn Phara, a celebrated physician of Corella, who 

 was appointed curator of the botanical garden of 

 the Sultan Alnasar. Albiruni, who died in 941, 

 travelled in India during the long period of forty 

 years, to observe the nature and properties of the 

 mineral and vegetable kingdoms ; and has given the 

 result of his researches in a rare and exceedingly 

 valuable treatise on precious stones. 



The praise of originality, however, is more justly 

 due to the Saracens for their discoveries in chemis- 

 try, of which they may be considered as the invent" 



