27 
province of Mazendevan, on the S.W. coast of the Caspian 
Sea. This author expressly mentions himself as the third 
in order of time, who had written on medicines in the Persian 
language, the author of the Ikhtiarat Buddee having been 
the first ; and he states having completed his work in the 
year of the Hegira 770, which is the year 1392 of the 
Christian era, or 468 years from the present time, that is 
shortly after the close of the classic age of the School of 
Bagdad. Time will not permit that I should dwell at all 
on the contents of these works ; but it is important to 
observe, that their several authors, in their respective Pre- 
faces, give the dates at which they wrote, as well as the 
sources whence they derived their information. These they 
state to be their own experience, and a long list of Arabian 
authors, as well as translations of several Indian ones. 
Passing from the Persians, we come next in the ascend- 
ing series to the Arabs. They, we know, long held sway, 
and their works were considered of supreme authority in 
all the medical schools of Europe, even to the exclusion of 
those of the Greeks, their masters. It is needless, therefore, 
to refer to the merits or demerits of Avicenna, Haly Abbas, 
Rhazes, Serapion, or Mesue, as these are dwelt upon in the 
several histories of medicine. The Arabs usually receive 
credit for having advanced the sciences of Algebra, Astro- 
nomy, given origin to Chemistry, made some additions to 
Medicine, and unquestionably to our more immediate 
subject of Materia Medica ; as many of the milder, and 
some of the more powerful purgatives, as well as some 
aromatics and stimulants, made their first appearance, as 
far as we at present know, in the works of Arabian authors. 
The Arabian School is generally stated to have existed 
for 500 years. It is necessary, therefore, if we wish to 
connect the history of the past with the present, to ascertain 
by how many years the last of the Arabs preceded the first 
