.1839.] Regeneration of Medicine in Egypt. 395 



Mamelukes — a year that signalized the commencement of new military 

 reforms — the first roots, so to speak, of the medical laurel were planted 

 thereby Doctors Mendrici (Genoese), Raffaelli (Leghornian),MAR- 

 tinil (Pisan), Del Signore (Piedmontese), Cunha (ditto), Kara- 

 cucci (Cattarese), Marnechi (Piedmontese), Gentili (of Ancona) 

 Cervelli (Pisan), Morpurgs (of Trieste), Durando (Piedmontese), 

 Calucci (Neapolitan), Lardoni (Roman), Vernoni (Piedmontese), 

 and several others, all Italians, too numerous to be mentioned ; whereas 

 in that long period the French could reckon no other countryman 

 of their's than a certain M. Dussap, Apprentice-Surgeon. 



Nor should, on the contrary, all the French professors be cited who 

 followed the memorable expedition of 1798, in as much as those were 

 days of battle, and those personages, albeit highly eminent, had no 

 opportunity of mixing as much as was necessary with the aborigines, 

 of coming in contact with the native physicians, and of diffusing, 

 by word and example, the salutary precepts whereof we intend 

 discussing. In fact, after their departure no vestige remained of their 

 knowledge ; we mean, not a school, not a scholar, no prevailing system, 

 no sensible sign was to be discovered, that denoted any tendency to the 

 destruction of the abominable empire of empiricism and imposture. 



The light of true knowledge illuminates in the end even the dimmest 

 and most near-sighted. Hence, notwithstanding their deeply-rooted and 

 numberless prejudices and antipathies, the Arabs finally discovered the 

 difference that existed between European doctors and those quacks 

 who for so long a period had usurped among them the name and 

 attributes of physicians. 



Mehemet Aly above all, who was then devising a bold, political 

 reform of the state which had been placed in his hands by fortune and 

 courage, convinced by experience, and by the dint of warm, benevolent 

 suggestions (among which held the foremost place those of the Chev. 

 Drovitti, Piedmontese) perceived the inestimable service that so 

 grand an enterprise could derive from the Art of Healing suitably pro- 

 fessed, and delayed not to make the talent of the European physicians 

 contribute to his mighty undertaking. 



In the year 1822 Doctors Martini, Del Signore, Cinba, and 

 some others, were charged by him with the erection at Abou-Zabel of 

 an Hospital, modelled and managed after the best European establish- 

 ments of its kind,* and were directed to lay before him a plan of a 

 general systematic arrangement of the Medical Service in the Vice- 

 royalty. This is in reality the era of the regeneration of medicine in 

 Egypt ; and if the foundations of it were laid by Italian hands, we 

 must legitimately conclude that the glory of having re-produced medi- 



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