Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/242

 school—viz., John, son of Serapion (or Serapion the Elder, as he is commonly called). He lived about the middle of the ninth century of the Christian era and wrote entirely in the Syrian language, but at a later date his works were all translated into Arabic. The smaller of his two most important treatises, and at the same time the one which appears to have attracted the most attention, was called the Kounnach. About the middle of the twelfth century A. D. it was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona, and named by him Breviarium; a still later translation received the name of Practica. The first part of this smaller treatise (the Breviarium or the Practica) is divided into six books, the titles of which are as follows:—

1. On Nodosities, Ophiasis, and Alopecia. 2. On the Falling Out of the Eyelashes. 3. On the Mild Form of Tinea, the form which resembles Favus. 4. Scaly Affections of the Head and of Other Parts of the Skin. 5. Lice of the Head and of the Body. 6. Headache caused by Exposure to the Sun; and other forms of Cephalalgia.

Salmouïh ben Bayan, a Christian, was the last one of the pupils of the Djondisabour school who attained considerable celebrity as a physician. When the Caliph Motassem came to the throne in 833 A. D., he appointed Salmouïh his personal physician and soon became very much attached to him; leaning upon him more and more for advice in all sorts of troubles. Salmouïh was the author of several medical treatises, but they have all been lost, not even their titles are now known to us. When dying (early in 840 A. D.), he sent word to the Caliph not to put his entire trust in the medical judgment of Mesué if he should find it necessary to call upon the latter for advice in the event of a serious attack of illness. This celebrated physician was universally admitted to be most learned in everything relating to medicine, but there were many of his professional brethren—and Salmouïh was among the number—who did not esteem him so highly as a practitioner. "The most important thing in medicine," said the latter,