Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/240

 relatives that he should display such extravagant generosity toward a Christian, he replied: "The fate of the empire is bound up in my fate, and my life is in the hands of Gabriel."

Gabriel Bakhtichou died in the early part of the ninth century, not long after the Caliph El Mâmoun had started on his expedition against the Greeks (828 A. D.). He was the author of several medical treatises, and, like his famous grandfather, George Bakhtichou, he did everything in his power to promote the work of translating from the Greek into the Arabic. Gabriel's brother, also named George, and his son Bakhtichou ben Djabriel were both of them physicians of considerable distinction. The latter accompanied El Mâmoun on his expedition against the Greeks. It is a fact worth noting here, that throughout this war the Caliph never for a moment lost sight of the great national scheme of education which his predecessor Almansur had inaugurated and which was still engaging the time and best efforts of many scholars and copyists in Bagdad. Whenever he captured a city he insisted upon the delivery to him of whatever copies of scientific treatises its citizens might possess. But even these extraordinary methods of securing the books which they needed did not satisfy the Arabs, their eagerness to accumulate as many text books as possible being insatiable. Accordingly, from time to time, one of the translators—some member of the Bakhtichou family, for example—would be sent to the different cities of Syria and Persia to search out and get possession of as many Greek manuscripts as possible. Thus, Honein is reported to have said: "I have not been able to procure a complete copy of Galen's 'Demonstration.' Gabriel endeavored to find a copy, but did not succeed; and I myself hunted through Irak, Syria, Palestine and Egypt, but was at last only partially successful. I found one-half of the text in Damascus."

The work of translation was kept up with unremitting zeal until the middle of the ninth century (reigns of El Ouatocq and of Moutaouakkel).

Among the physicians who received their training at the