Old Sutural History Books. 
/ 
works was issued by Gesner in 1556, and a good edition of 
his De Natura Animalium was brought out in 1774 under the No. 6. 
editorship of Abraham Gronovius. 
The early Christian writers, none too conversant with 
Natural History, utilized these works, without question as to 
their reliability, in their allegorical interpretations of Biblical 
texts. Hence arose a series of collections, in many languages, 
of some fifty Christian allegories, much read and quoted in the 
Middle Ages, known by the common title of the Physiologus^ or, 
since most of its imagery was borrowed from the animal world, 
the Bestiary. 
On such productions as these were based the Natural History 
writings of the Middle Ages—“ Dark ” indeed as regards pro¬ 
gress in scientific learning. 
WHILE the works of the classical writers were neglected 
in Europe, their study was taken up by the Arabian 
Philosophers, who made some advance, more especially in the 
knowledge of medicine and chemistry, and their contributions 
were largely utilized in works issued in the centuries immediately 
succeeding. 
Among these Arabian philosophers three call for special 
mention. 
Husain Ibn ’Abd Allah, called Ibn SIna, or Avicenna 
[980-1037], whose Canon (first printed about 1470) was the 
principal authority in medical matters for centuries, wrote on 
the formation and classification of Minerals. He merged the 
“ Stones ” and “ Earths ” into a single class, but, on the other 
hand, created two additional classes, “ Salts ” and “ Sulphurs,” 
the latter including various combustible substances bitumen) 
which, at that time, were held to contain sulphur. 
Serapion, or Yuhanna Ibn Sarapion [fl. 8th or 9th 
century] was author of the oldest known treatise on medicine in 
Arabic. A Latin translation by Symon a Cordo, Liher 
Serapionis aggregatus in medicinis Simplicihus^ printed at Parma, No. 14. 
in 1473, by Antoninus Zarotus, is one of the oldest known 
Herbals. 
Averroes, or Muhammad Ibn Ahmad [1149-1198], 
chiefly celebrated for his Commentaries on Aristotle, also wrote 
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