Page:The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800.djvu/293

 attitude of the physicians of Western Europe underwent a change.

The city of Toledo, in Spain, was richly stocked with the manuscript treasures of Arabic literature at the time (1085 A. D.) when it fell into the hands of the Christians. One of the earliest scholars to engage in the work of translating these treasures into Latin was Gerard of Cremona, in Lombardy, who lived during the twelfth century (1114-1187 A. D.). He spent most of his lifetime in Toledo, "learning and teaching, reading and translating." (Neuburger.) Among the medical works which he translated from the Arabic the most important are the following: Several of the writings of Hippocrates and Galen; the Breviarium of Serapion; several of the writings of Rhazes and of Isaac Judaeus; the treatise on surgery by Abulcasis; the Canon of Avicenna, etc. This stimulated many others to follow in the footsteps of Gerard of Cremona; and thus, during the thirteenth century, a number of works of importance were translated in addition to those already mentioned. Such, for example, were the "Colliget" of Averroes by Bonacosa, a Jew (1255) of Padua; the "Teïssir" of Avenzoar, and the "Dietetics" of Maimonides by John of Capua, a Jewish convert to Christianity (1262-1278); the "De veribus cordis" of Avicenna by Arnaldus of Villanova (about 1282); the treatise "De simplicibus" of Serapion the Younger, and the "Liber servitoris" of Abulcasis, by Simon Januensis; and many others. This wave of keen interest in the writings of Arabic physicians and in the Arabic versions of Greek medical authors soon reached Languedoc in France, and then passed over from there into Italy. For a long time the Salerno physicians resisted its influence, but they finally yielded to it, as the leaders in the schools of Bologna, Naples, Montpellier and Paris had already done. It was at Palermo, in Sicily, however, that the movement received its greatest impetus. Frederick II., at that time King of Sicily, and a ruler who was most tolerant in religious matters, had at his Court an entire staff of Arabic physicians, philosophers, astrologers and poets; and, in addition, he kept a number of