Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 39.djvu/27

Rh useful sanitary and hygienic ideas, which had probably been first evolved by the Egyptians, and from them transmitted to the world mainly through the sacred books attributed to Moses; and both Jews and Mohammedans, while fettered by various superstitions of their own, were far less influenced by the mediæval development of miracles than were their Christian contemporaries.

The Jewish scholars became especially devoted to medical science. To them is largely due the creation of the School of Salerno, which we find flourishing in the tenth century. Judged by our present standards, its work was poor indeed, but, compared with other medical instruction of the time, it was vastly superior: it developed hygienic principles especially, and brought medicine upon a higher plane.

Still more important is the rise of the School of Montpellier; this was due almost entirely to Jewish physicians, and it developed medical studies to a yet higher point, doing much to create a medical profession worthy of the name throughout southern Europe.

As to the Arabians, we find them from the tenth to the fourteenth century, especially in Spain, giving much thought to medicine, and to chemistry as subsidiary to it. About the beginning of the ninth century, when the greater Christian writers were supporting fetich by theology, Almamon, the Moslem, declared, "They are the elect of God, his best and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of their rational faculties." The influence of Avicenna, the translator of the works of Aristotle, from the beginning of the eleventh century extended throughout all Europe. The Arabians were indeed much fettered by tradition in medical science, but their translations of Hippocrates and Galen preserved to the world the best thus far developed in medicine, and still better were their contributions to pharmacy; these remain of value to the present hour.

Various Christian laymen also rose above the prevailing theologic atmosphere far enough to see the importance of promoting scientific development. First among these we may name the Emperor Charlemagne; he and his great minister, Alcuin, not only promoted medical studies in the schools they founded, but also made provision for the establishment of botanic gardens in which