FOUNDATIONS OF MEDICINE 



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same beneficent rule appeared the great Arabian physicians Rhazes, 

 Haly Abbas, and Avicenna. 



Arabian medicine was carried into Spain by the Moors, and 

 flourished exceedingly under the generous sympathy of the Cordova 

 Caliphs, producing workers like Albucasis and Avenzour. 



Even Egypt had its ' Hall of Wisdom ' erected by Hakim 

 Biamrillah in 1005, under the protection of the Cairene Caliphs. 



During this period medical instruction was given to scholars in 

 the large hospitals and in the dispensaries, which were numerous. 



The features of Arabic medicine which are especially interesting 

 to us are the references to tropical diseases, and these are sufficiently 

 numerous because the Arabic physicians were brought into contact 

 with strangers from various parts of the world who had been 

 attracted to Arabic countries by the wisdom of the Caliphs with 

 regard to learning and liberty. As these strangers often brought 

 with them strange herbs and drugs, so Arabic medicine abounds 

 with references to new remedies for disease. 



Associated with Arabic medicine is the appearance of many 

 Jewish medical works, and so much so that it appears to us that 

 this should be held to be the second period of Jewish medicine. The 

 reason for this development is because the Caliphs allowed the Jews 

 to live and work in freedom at a time when Christianity as a whole 

 was persecuting them. 



The decline of Arabian medicine came in the thirteenth century, 

 with the fall of Cordova in a.d. 1236 and with the Mongol invasion 

 of Bagdad in A.D. 1258, and though it lived for long in Spain, still, 

 its day was over and its scholars were passing to the School of 

 Salerno, from which were to come those piercing rays of medical 

 knowledge which were to illuminate the closing years of the Middle 

 Ages. 



Before, however, passing on to the consideration of medieval medicine we 

 will make brief reference to a few of the Arabic works on medicine, which 

 included not merely dictionaries and translations, but original works on 

 general medicine, pharmacopoeias, works dealing with natural history, and 

 veterinary matters. 



Ab^ Zakariyd Y^hannd ben Mdsawayh, or Mesua, was the son of a Christian 

 apothecary in the hospital of Gundeshapur. He was appointed by the Caliph 

 Harunu-'r-Rashid to translate Greek works, of which he did many, but he 

 also wrote original treatises — e.g., one upon ' the Curiosities of Medicine.' 

 He died in a.d. 857, and some of his books, as far as we know, were the first 

 medical works to be printed in movable type in 1471. He seems to have 

 been the first to write a medical treatise in tabular form in his ' Kitabu-'l- 

 Mushajjar,' which comprised treatises on the general rules of medical art and 

 on the diseases of regions and organs, including four books on the diseases 

 of the skin. 



Abu Bakr Muhammad ben Zakartya-'r-Rdzt, or Rhazes, was born at Ray 

 in *Iraq-i-'Ajam, but did not commence the study of medicine until he was 

 thirty-two years of age, when he was taught at Bagdad by 'Ali ben Rabban 

 at-Tabari. He was first Director of the Ray Hospital and later of that at 

 Bagdad. He died about a.d. 923. 



His works are numerous, and we may mention ' Kitabu-'l Mansuri,' or 

 System of Medicine, which is divided into ten chapters. It includes anatomy, 

 diagnosis, ailments and drugs, preservation of health, cosmetics and the cure 



