GREEK BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE 



faculty of investigation failed, the greater 

 ancient sources were no longer used in the 

 fullness of their contents and living spirit. 



In the East, the energies aroused by Islam 

 stemmed the decline of medicine. Among the 

 early " Arabian " physicians (the best of them 

 were Persians) were good practitioners and 

 clinical observers. There was enough active 

 intelligence to demand and support the use of 

 the best sources of medical science, which 

 were of course the Greek. One of these good 

 physicians, the princely Persian, Avicenna 

 (980-1037), was an acquisitive and systema- 

 tizing genius of the first order. His great 

 " Canon of the healing art," drawn chiefly 

 from Galen and Aristotle, presents the contents 

 of Greek medicine as a closed and serried 

 system. This book was of enormous influence 

 upon medieval Europe, and is said still to rule 

 in the Moslem world. 



Nevertheless in Avicenna's " Canon " and in 

 the treatises current in medieval Europe, Greek 

 medicine was embalmed, rather than alive and 

 quick in its creative spirit of investigation. 

 Moreover, medieval physicians and compilers 

 tended to select and use what was on the level 

 of their own appreciation or understanding. So 

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