Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/102

80 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.ix. the Greek books into Arabic, either directly or through intermediate Syriac versions, was effected for the most part under the enlightened patronage of the early 'Abbásid Caliphs at Baghdad between the middle of the eighth and ninth centuries of our era by skilful and painstaking scholars who were for the most part neither Arabs nor even Muhammadans, but Syrians, Hebrews or Persians of the Christian, Jewish or Magian faith."

It was these men who kept alive for the West some of the Greek learning until the revival of a direct knowledge of Greek laid the original works of Galen and others open to Western men of science. Indeed, as Professor Browne shows, there was, even in Muhammadan countries, some prejudice against Muhammadan physicians. There is but little medicine in the Koran, and "Prophet's medicine" was a term of scorn to good physicians.

It was in the middle of the eighth century and into the newly founded city of Baghdad that Greek and other ancient learning poured, to clothe itself in Arabian dress. The great old Sasanian school of Jundi-Shápúr, fortified by the Nestorians whom Diocletian's persecutions had driven from Byzantium to Persia, and by Indian learning lured to Persia by the King we know as Chosroes, was still in existence to exercise its influence after the Arab conquest; and through its great men Greek medicine came to Baghdad in Arabic dress. They preserved for us, for instance, the ninth to the fifteenth books of Galen's 'Anatomy,' of which the original Greek is lost, and their translations, some direct into Arabic from the Greek, some through Syriac versions, were the link between classical science and modern.

In his second lecture Professor Browne comes to the special period which he has chosen for this study. What he calls the Golden Age of Arabian learning culminated at Baghdad in the century between 760 and  850. His special period is the two centuries following the close of that Golden Age. He chooses out four great men, who, working on the foundation laid by the translations from the Greek, made more or less independent investigation, and wrote more or less original treatises on medicine arranged on their own plan. We must not, it seems, expect too much originality. Dissection, for instance, was unknown, unless, indeed, it be true that in the first half of the ninth century the celebrated Yuhanna ibn Masawayh " being unable to obtain human subjects, dissected apes in a special dissecting- room which he built on the banks of the Tigris, and that a particular species of ape, considered to resemble man most closely, was supplied to him by the ruler of Nubia." But these men were keen observers, and made the most of their opportunities. The first of the four whom Pro- fessor Browne selects is 'Ali ibn Babban of Tabaristan, a Christian or a Jew, who wrote ' The Paradise of Wisdom,' a practitioner's handbook, as Professor Browne calls it, con- taining very little about anatomy or surgery and a great deal about climate, diet and drugs, including poisons, with a long section on the symptoms and remedies of diseases. Then comes the man whom the medieval Latinists knew as Bhazes, arid whom Professor Browne regards as the greatest and most original of all the Muslim physicians. Legend and his own writings (especially the great ' Hawi ' or ' Continens ' with its clinical notes of actual cases treated) combine to show him entitled to this honour. Apparently he blinded himself by his excessive devotion to alchemy ; but the man was no fool who, on being asked to choose a site for a hospital, caused pieces of meat to be hung up in various parts of the city and chose that part where the meat most slowly decomposed. The third was the man known to the Middle Ages as Haly Abbas, who wrote the ' Liber Regius,' in which both anatomy and surgery have their place. Haly Abbas was even more successful, in the worldly sense, than a "fashionable" doctor or surgeon of to-day. For bleeding and purging Harun-al-Raschid (as we call the great Caliph of the ' Arabian Nights ') twice a year he was paid 200,000 dirhams (well over 8,000), and he died worth 3 millions sterling. Last comes the great Avicenna, philosopher, physician, poet, man of pleasure, who lived so hard that he died, worn out, at 58. His chief work is the still famous ' Canon,' which Professor Browne will discuss more fully in the FitzPatrick lectures this year. It is a fascinating subject. To all men of science the last lecture, in which Professor Browne discusses some of the characteristics of medieval science (e.g., " the solidarity and interdependence of all its branches, and the dominance of certain numbers in its basic conceptions "), will be of great interest. And the " general reader," especially perhaps he who loves ' The Arabian Nights ' and Persian poetry and euphuism, will find the book full of entertainment. In all times (' Gil Bias ' and Moliere, ' Tristram Shandy ' and Bernard Shaw leap to the mind) doctors have been fair game. And when we read Professor Browne's stories of what the Muslim doctors thought of the Frankish doctors, of what the Muslim patients thought of the Muslim doctors, and what the Muslim doctors said about each other, we can all but hear the laughter that must have broken out during the delivery of these very entertaining and instructive lectures. to ALL communications intended for insertion in our columns should bear the name and address of the sender not necessarily for publication, but as a guarantee of good faith. EDITORIAL communications should be addressed to " The Editor of ' Notes and Queries ' " Adver- tisements and Business Letters to " The Pub- lishers " at the Office, Printing House Square, London, B.C. 4; corrected proofs to The Editor, ' N. & Q.,' Printing House Square, London, E.G. 4. WHEN answering a query, or referring to an article which has already appeared, correspondents are requested to give within parentheses immediately after the exact heading the numbers of the series, volume, and page at which the con- tribution in question is to be found. WHEN sending a letter to be forwarded to another contributor correspondents are requested to put.in the top left-hand corner of the envelope the number of the page of ' N. & Q.' to which the letter refers.