18 PATHOLOGY. 
II. From the Dark Ages to the end of the Sixteenth 
Century. 
After the downfal of the Roman empire, and when 
the inundation of Goths and Vandals had almoft com¬ 
pletely exterminated literature of every kind in Europe, 
medicine, though a practical art, (hared the fame fate with 
more abftraft fciences. Learning in general, banifhed 
from the feat of arms, took refuge among the eailern 
nations, where the arts of peace ftili continued to be cul¬ 
tivated. The Arabians, from their vicinity to Alexandria, 
from their intercourfe with the fed! of Neltorians and 
with the Greek philofophers, who had been compelled 
by the perfecution of Jultinian to take refuge in the Ma¬ 
hometan dates, had acquired a tafte for literature and the 
fciences. The knowledge which they polTeffed of medi¬ 
cine is a fubjedt of curious inquiry. In the anatomical 
branch, they did little more than tranflate and paraphrale 
the Greek w riters. The errors which their originals had 
made in anatomy became facred ; and, if the Arabs have 
defcribed certain parts of the body with more exadtnefs 
than Galen, thefe defcriptions were only conjedlures, or 
the confequence of the ftudy of fome Greek authors who 
have not defcended to us. The Mahometan laws prohibit 
diffedtions, becaule, in the opinion of the Muffulmans, the 
foul does not depart from the body at the moment of 
death : it paffes from one member to another till it cen¬ 
ters in the bread, where it remains for a coniiderable 
time. The examination by the angels, of the deceafed per- 
fon in his tomb, could not be made on a mutilated corpfe. 
The phyficians of the Arabs dudied, therefore, only 
fkeletonsdn the cemeteries, and in mod furgical cafes im¬ 
plicitly followed the ancients. 
Chemidry, with the red of the fciences, being banilhed 
from the other parts of the world, alfo took refuge among 
the Arabs. Geber in the feventh or eighth, and others in 
the ninth, century of the Chridian asra, wrote feveral 
chemical, or rather alchymical, books, in Arabic. In 
thefe works of Geber are contained fuch ufeful directions 
concerning the manner of conducting didillation, calci¬ 
nation, fublimation, and other chemical preparations, 
and fuch pertinent obfervations refpedting various mine¬ 
rals, as judly feem to entitle him to the character which 
fome have given him of being the father of chemidry, the 
difcoverer of the key to the ricked treafures of nature, 
though he himfelf modedly confelTes that he has done 
little elfe than abridge the dodtrine of the ancients con¬ 
cerning the tranfmutation of metals. He mentions fe¬ 
veral mercurial preparations, fuch as the corrofive fubli- 
mate and red precipitate, nitric acid, muriatic acid, and 
many other chemical compofitions. 
The Herbal of Diol'corides was enriched by the Saracens 
with the addition of two thoufand plants, and their 
knowledge of the vegetable world enabled them to infert 
in their pharmacopoeia feveral remedies which had been 
unknown to the Greeks. One great difference between 
the Grecian and Saracen difpenlatories was, that the me¬ 
dicines in the latter were of a milder nature than thofe 
in the former: another difference was the common ufeof 
fugar in lieu of hopey. Diofcorides, fpeaking of the va¬ 
rious fpecies of honey, fays, that there is a kind of it in a 
concrete date, called, Jaccliaron, which is found in reeds 
in India and Arabia Felix : he alfo defcribes its medicinal 
virtues. Galen writes upon it nearly in the fame man¬ 
ner; but the hidory of the artificial preparation of fugar, 
by boiling or other means, was very imperfedtly known. 
The Saracens appear, however, to have underdood the 
art ; for, by a mixture of fugar with other ingredients, 
they made various medicines with which the ancients 
were unacquainted. 
The caliphs had done much to render the Arabians 
thus eminently learned. In the feventh century, 
Almanfor, and his famous fuccefior Harun A 1 Rafchid, 
patronifed feveral medical fchools, founded hofpitals and 
academies, and afiiduoufly cultivated the introduction of 
Grecian learning. Unfortunately, the Arabian phyficians 
mixed abfurd and myderious fuperftitions with the 
knowledge they thus acquired. The popular tade for 
the marvellous induced them to refort to every means of 
impofing on the vulgar. Adrology was introduced, par¬ 
ticular pofitions and appearances of the liars were ftudied 
in dangerous cafes, and amulets were in the poffellion of 
every fuccefsful and popular pradtifer of medicine. 
As difcoverers and inventors, the Saracens have few 
claims to praife, but they formed the link which unites 
ancient and modern literature; and, fince their relative 
fituation with Europe fomewhat refembled the relative 
fituation between Egypt and Greece, they are entitled to 
a portion of our refpedt and gratitude. When the princes 
of the wed began to emerge from barbarifin, they cor¬ 
rectly acknowledged the Moors to be the great depofitaries 
of knowledge. Many ufeful treatifes, now loll in the 
original, for example the fifth, fixth, and’feventh, books 
of the Conic Sections of Apollonius Pergamus, and fome 
of the commentaries of Galen and Hippocrates, were pre- 
ferved in the language of the Saracens, or Arabians, as 
they are indifferently called. 
Among the moll eminent of the Arabian phyficians, 
we may reckon Rhazes, Avicenna, Albucafis, and 
Avenzoar. 
Rhazes, one of the olded and mod didinguifhed, was 
born at Rei, in the province of Chorafan, about the year 
852. There was a fchool in his native town, at which he 
received his early education ; but he is laid not to have 
commenced the dudy of medicine till fomewhat late in 
life, having given up his time much to the cultivation of 
nuific. After he was thirty years of age, he removed to 
Bagdad ; and then he turned his attention to philofophy, 
and afterwards to phyfic. He became, however, indefa¬ 
tigable in his application; and was continually occupied 
in obferving, reading, and writing, until he obtained the 
highed reputation ; and he was feledted out of a hundred 
eminent phyficians, who were then refident at Bagdad, to 
fuperintend the celebrated hofpital of that city. The hif- 
torians confidered him as the Galen of the Arabians; and, 
from his long life and conftant practice, during which he 
paid the moll affiduous attention to the varieties of difeafe, 
he obtained the appellation of the Experimenter, or the 
experienced. He was faid alfo to be profoundly fkilled in 
all the fciences, efpecially in philofophy, aftronomy, and 
rnufic. Fie travelled much in purfuit of knowledge, and 
made frequent journeys into Periia, his native country, 
and was much confulted by feveral princes, particularly by 
Almanfor, the chief of Chorafan, with whom he fre¬ 
quently correfponded, and to whom he dedicated feveral 
of his writings. Abi Ofbaia enumerated 226 treatifes 
compofed by Rhazes, among which the ten books addrelfed 
to his patron Almanfor are mentioned, and therefore are 
doubtlefs genuine, although Haly Abbas, who has given 
an account of him and his works, has not noticed them. 
This work Rhazes defigned as a complete body of phyfic, 
and it may be deemed the great magazine of all the Ara¬ 
bian medicine : the ninth book, indeed, which treats of the 
cure of difeafes, was in fuch general ellimation for feveral 
centuries, that it was the text-book of the public fchools, 
and was commented upon by the moll learned profellbrs. 
Neverthelefs, like the rell of the Arabian writings, it 
contains very little more than the lubllance of the wmrks 
of the Greeks, from whom the Arabians borrowed almoft 
all their medical knowledge. They have, indeed, and 
Rhazes in particular, given the firlt diltindl account of the 
JinalL-pux, a pellilential malady which the Greeks have no¬ 
where accurately defcribed, and which is, therefore, gene¬ 
rally inferred to have been unknown among that people. 
This is quellionable; but, at all events, the firlt lpecific 
account of the fmall-pox is to be found in the works of 
Rhazes. He was the author, alfo, of the firlt treadle ever 
compofed refpedting the difeafes of children. His book on. 
the affedtions of the joints is interelling, and contains an 
account of fome remarkable cures, effected chiefly by co¬ 
pious blood-letting. He defcribes the fymptoms of hy- 
4 drophobia 
