In the science of medicine the Arabians have been deservedly
applauded. The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and
Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian masters; in the city
of Bagdad 860 physicians were licensed to exercise their
lucrative profession; in Spain the lives of the Catholic
princes were entrusted to the skill of the Saracens;
and the School of Salerno, their legitimate offspring,
revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the healing
art.--GIBBON: “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,”
Chap. LII.
No period of European history is more astonishing than the records
of the triumphant progress of the Arab power under the influence of
the faith of Islam. From the earliest times this grand Semitic race
was distinguished for learning of a certain character, for gravity,
piety, superstition, a poetic imagination, and eloquence. Centuries
of independence, jealously guarded, and innumerable local feuds made
the material of perfect soldiers, and when Mohammed had grafted on the
native religious character his own faith and missionary zeal the Arab
army, the Saracens, as they came to be called, filled with fanatic
fervour, and utterly indifferent to death, or, rather, eager for it as
the introduction to the Paradise which their prophet had seen and told
them of, formed such an irresistible force as on a small scale has only
been reproduced by Cromwell in our nation.
But the rapidity of the conquests of Mohammedanism was perhaps less
remarkable than the extraordinary assimilation of ancient learning and
the development of new science among these hitherto unlettered Arabs.
Mohammed was born in the year 569 of our era. The Koran was the first
substantial piece of Arabic literature. Alexandria was taken and Egypt
conquered by the Moslems under Amrou in A.D. 640, Persia and
Syria having been previously subdued. Amrou was himself disposed to
yield to the solicitations of some Greek grammarians, who implored him
to spare the great Library of the city, the depository of the learning
of the ancient world. But he considered it necessary to refer the
request to the Caliph Omar. The reply of the Commander of the Faithful
is one of the most familiar of the stories in Gibbon’s fascinating
history. “If the writings support the Koran they are superfluous; if
they oppose it they are pernicious; burn them.” It is declared that the
papers and manuscripts served as fuel for the baths of the city for six
months.
The destruction of the Alexandrian Library is often alluded to as a
signal triumph of barbarism over civilisation. Gibbon cynically remarks
that “if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were
indeed consumed in the public baths a philosopher may allow with a
smile that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind.” But at
least the spirit which animated Omar in 640 may be noted for comparison
with the encouragement of learning which was soon to characterise the
Arab rulers.
Only a lifetime later, in A.D. 711, the sons of the Alexandrian
conquerors invaded Spain, and within the same century made their
western capital, Cordova, the greatest centre of learning,
civilisation, and luxury in Europe. The following quotation from Dr.
Draper’s “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe” will give
an idea of this achievement:
Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain than
they commenced a brilliant career. Adopting what had become
the established policy of the Commanders of the Faithful
in Asia, the Emirs of Cordova distinguished themselves as
patrons of learning, and set an example of refinement strongly
contrasting with the condition of the native European Princes.
Cordova under their administration, at the highest point of
their prosperity, boasted of more than two hundred thousand
houses, and more than a million inhabitants. After sunset a
man might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles by
the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years after this
time there was not so much as one public lamp in London. Its
streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently,
whoever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped
up to his ankles in mud. Other cities, as Granada, Seville,
Toledo, considered themselves rivals of Cordova. The palaces
of the Khalifs were magnificently decorated. Those sovereigns
might well look down with supercilious contempt on the
dwellings of the rulers of Germany, France, and England, which
were scarcely better than stables--chimneyless, windowless,
with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, like the
wigwams of certain Indians.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF MOSQUE, CORDOVA.]
About the same time the passion for learning was growing in the East.
Bagdad was founded A.D. 762, and about the year 800 Haroun
Al-Raschid founded the famous university of that city. Libraries
and schools were established throughout the two sections of the
Saracenic dominions. Greek and Latin works of philosophy and science
were translated, but the licentious and blasphemous mythology of the
classical poets was abhorred by this serious nation, and no Arabic
versions of Olympian fables were ever made. Astronomy, mathematics,
metaphysics, and the arts of agriculture, of horticulture, of
architecture, of war, and of commerce, were advanced to an extent
which this century does not realise, while amid all this progress the
study of chemistry, medicine, and pharmacy was pursued with particular
eagerness.
Curiously the Arabs owed their instruction in these branches of
knowledge to those whom we are accustomed to regard as their
traditional foes. The dispersion of the Nestorians after the
condemnation of their doctrines by the Council of Ephesus in
A.D. 431 resulted in the foundation of a Chaldean Church and
the establishment of famous colleges in Syria and Persia. In these the
science of the Greeks, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the medical
teaching of Hippocrates were kept alive when they had been banished by
the Church from Constantinople. The Jews had also acquired special
fame for medical skill throughout the East, and they and the Nestorians
appear to have associated in some of the schools. It was to these
teachers the Arabs turned when, having assured their military success,
they demanded intellectual advancement. The Caliphs not only tolerated,
they welcomed the assistance of the “unbelievers,” and, in fact,
depended on them for the equipment of their own schools, and for the
private tuition of their children. To John Mesuë, a Nestorian, and a
famous writer on medicine and pharmacy, Haroun Al-Raschid entrusted the
superintendence of the public schools of Bagdad.
The first Nestorian college is believed to have been established in the
city of Dschondisabour in Chuzistan (Nishapoor), before the revelation
of Mohammed. Theology and Medicine were particularly studied at this
seat of learning, and a hospital was established to which the medical
students were admitted, but they had first to be examined in the
Psalms, the New Testament, and in certain books of prayers.
It was the Caliph Almansor and his immediate successor, Haroun
Al-Raschid, who between them made Bagdad a centre of study. Students
and professors came thither from all parts of the then civilised world,
and the Caliphs welcomed, and indeed invited, both Christians and Jews
to teach there. Hospitals were established in the city, and the first
public pharmacies or dispensaries were provided in Bagdad by Haroun
Al-Raschid. It is on record that in A.D. 807 envoys from that
monarch came to the court of Charlemagne bringing gifts of balsams,
nard, ointments, drugs, and medicines.
Arabic medicine was based on the works of Hippocrates and Galen,
which were for the most part translated first into Syriac, and then
into Arabic. It does not come within the scope of this work to narrate
or estimate the advance in medicine which may be accredited to the
Arabian writers and practitioners. Medical historians do not allow that
they contributed much original service to either anatomy, physiology,
pathology, or surgery; but it is admitted by every student that their
maintenance of scholarship through the half dozen centuries during
which Europe was sunk in the most abject ignorance and superstition
entitles them to the gratitude of all who have lived since. The
medicine of Avicenna was perhaps much the same as that of Galen. Both
were accepted by the physicians of England, France, and Germany with
the slavish deference which the long burial of the critical faculties
had made inevitable, and which needed the vigorous abuse of Paracelsus
to quicken into activity.
Whatever may have been the case with medicine it cannot be denied that
the Arabs contributed largely to the development of its ministering
arts, chemistry and pharmacy. The achievements attributed to Geber in
the eighth century were probably not due to any single adept. Tradition
assigned the glory to him and, likely enough, if such a chemist really
lived and acquired fame, other investigators who followed him for a
century or two adopted the pious fraud so frequently met with in other
branches of study in the early centuries of our era of attributing
theories or discoveries to some venerated teacher in order to assure
for them immediate acceptance. However this may be, it is not the less
established that the chemistry of Geber, or of Geber and others, was in
fact the fruit of Arab industry and genius.
Our language indicates to some extent what Pharmacy owes to the
Arabs. Alcohol, julep, syrup, sugar, alkermes, are Arabic names;
the general employment in medicine of rhubarb, senna, camphor,
manna, musk, nutmegs, cloves, bezoar stones, cassia, tamarinds,
reached us through them. They first distilled rose water. They first
established pharmacies, and from the time of Haroun Al-Raschid there
is evidence that the Government controlled the quality and prices of
the medicine sold in them. Sabor-Ebn-Sahel, president of the school
of Dschondisabour, was the author of the earliest pharmacopœia, which
was entitled “Krabadin”; and Hassan-Ali-Ebno-Talmid of Bagdad in the
tenth century, and Avicenna (Al-Hussein-Ben-Abdallah-Ebn-Sina) in the
eleventh century prepared collections of formulas which were used as
pharmacopœias.
It was the Arabs who raised pharmacy to its proper dignity. We do not
read of any noted pharmacists among them who were not physicians, but
the latter were all keen students of the materia medica, and occupied
themselves largely with pharmaceutical studies. But it is evident that
there was a distinct profession of pharmacy. We read of Avicenna,
for example, taking refuge with an apothecary at Hamdan, and there
composing some of his famous works. Elsewhere a quotation from Rhazes
gives some indication of the irregular practice of medicine which has
prevailed in every country and among all nations; and Sprengel quotes
some translated items from various Arabic authors which show that
as early as the ninth century the Government sanctioned the book of
pharmaceutical formulas, compiled by Sabor-Ebn-Sahel, director of the
School of Dschondisabour, already mentioned. His work was frequently
imitated in later times. The first London Pharmacopœia was professedly
based largely on the Formulary of Mesuë.
There is also evidence that both in civil life and in the army the
pharmacists were closely supervised. Their medicines were inspected,
and the prices at which they were sold to the public were controlled by
law.
The development and progress of medicine and its associated sciences
among the Arabs may be very concisely sketched. The flight of
Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, the Hejira as it is called, from which
the Mohommedan era is dated, corresponds in our chronology with
A.D. 622. The prophet died in 632. Contemporary with him lived
a priest at Alexandria named Ahrun or Aaron, who compiled from Greek
writers thirty books which he called the Pandects of Physic. These
were translated into Syriac and Arabic about 683 by a Jew of Bassora
named Maserdschawaih-Ebn-Dschaldschal. It is not in existence, and is
only known by references to it made by Rhazes. The first allusion to
small-pox known to history was contained in these Pandects. Serapion
quotes a number of formulas which he says were invented by Ahrun.
In 772 Almansor, the Caliph who founded the city of Bagdad, brought
thither from Nishabur (Dschondisabour) in Persia, a famous Christian
physician named George Baktischwah, who stayed for some time, and
at the request of Almansor translated into Arabic certain books on
Physic. He then returned to his own land, but his son was afterwards
a physician in great favour with the two succeeding Caliphs, Almohdi
and Haroun Al-Raschid. Freind states that when the elder Baktischwah
returned to Persia Almansor presented him with 10,000 pieces of gold,
and that Al-Raschid paid the younger Baktischwah an annual salary
of 10,000 drachmas. The last-named ruler also brought to Bagdad the
Nestorian Christian, Jahiah-Ebn-Masawaih, who, under the name of Mesuë
the Elder, retained a reputation for his formulas even up to the
publication of the London Pharmacopœia.
Mesuë is noted for his opposition to the violent purgative medicines
which the Greek and Roman physicians had made common, and he had much
to do with the popularisation, if not with the introduction of, senna,
cassia, tamarinds, sebestens, myrabolans, and jujube. He modified the
effects of certain remedies by judicious combinations, as, for example,
by giving violet root and lemon juice with scammony. He gave pine bark
and decoction of hyssop as emetics, and recommended the pancreas of the
hare as a styptic in diarrhœa.
A disciple of Mesuë’s, Ebn-Izak, added greatly to the medical resources
of the Arabs by translations of the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Pliny,
Paul of Egineta, and other Greek authors.
Abu-Moussah-Dschafar-Al-Soli, commonly called Geber, the equivalent
of his middle name, is supposed to have lived in the eighth century.
It has already been remarked that the chemical discoveries attributed
to this philosopher were probably the achievements of many workers,
and were afterwards collected and passed on to posterity as his alone.
From him are dated the introduction into science, to be adopted later
in medicine, of corrosive sublimate, of red precipitate, of nitric and
nitro-muriatic acids, and of nitrate of silver.
These chemical discoveries must have been made within the hundred years
from 750 to 850, because Rhazes, who wrote in the latter half of the
ninth century, mentions them. Geber has been supposed to have claimed
to have discovered the philosopher’s stone, and to have made the
universal medicine. But it is not at all certain that he contemplated
medicine at all. His language is highly figurative, and probably when
he says his gold had cured six lepers he meant only that he had, or
thought he had, extracted gold from six baser metals.
Rhazes, whose Europeanised name is the modification of Arrasi, which
was the final member of a long series of Eastern patronymics, was of
Persian birth, and commenced his studies in that country with music
and astronomy. When he was thirty he removed to Bagdad, and it was not
until then that he took up the sciences of chemistry and medicine.
Subsequently he was made director of the hospital of Bagdad, and
his lectures on the medical art were attended by students from many
countries. His principal work was entitled Hhawi, which has been
translated Continent, apparently because it was supposed to contain
all there was to know about medicine. The style of this treatise is
that of notes without method, and it is certain that it could not have
been written entirely by Rhazes, as authorities are named who did not
live until after he had died. The theory is that Rhazes left a quantity
of notes of his lectures and cases, and that some of his disciples
afterwards published them with additions, but without much editing.
Among the methods of treatment for which Rhazes is responsible may
be mentioned that of phthisis, with milk and sugar; of high fever,
with cold water; of weakness of the stomach and of the digestive
organs, with cold water and buttermilk; and he advises sufferers
from melancholia to play chess. He states that fever is not itself
a disease, but an effort of nature to cast out a disease. He was
particularly careful in the use of purgatives, which he said were apt
to occasion irritation of the intestinal canal, and in dysentery he
relied usually on fruits, rice, and farinaceous food, though in severe
cases he ordered quicklime, arsenic, and opium. In Freind’s History
of Medicine (1727) a translation of some comments of Rhazes on the
impostors of his day shows better than the citations already given how
just and, it may be said, modern were the ideas of this practitioner of
more than a thousand years ago. It may be added that Freind is not very
complimentary to Rhazes generally. I append an abbreviation of this
interesting notice of the quackery of the ninth century.
There are so many little arts used by mountebanks and
pretenders to physic that an entire treatise, had I mind to
write one, would not contain them. Their impudence is equal to
their guilt in tormenting persons in their last hours. Some
of them profess to cure the falling sickness (epilepsy) by
making an issue at the back of the head in form of a cross,
and pretending to take something out of the opening which
they held all the time in their hands. Others give out that
they will draw snakes out of their patients’ noses; this they
seem to do by putting an iron probe up the nostril until the
blood comes. Then they draw out an artificial worm, made of
liver. Other tricks are to remove white specks from the eye,
to draw water from the ear, worms from the teeth, stones from
the bladder, or phlegm from various parts of the body, always
having concealed the substance in their hands which they
pretend to extract. Another performance is to collect the evil
humours of the body into one place by rubbing that part with
winter cherries until they cause an inflammation. Then they
apply some oil to heal the place. Some assure their patients
they have swallowed glass. To prove this they tickle the
throat with a feather to induce vomiting, when some particles
of glass are ejected which were put there by the feather. No
wise man ought to trust his life in their hands, nor take any
of their medicines which have proved fatal to many.
Rhazes writes of aqua vitæ, but it is now accepted that he only means
a kind of wine. The distillation of wine was not practised till a
century after him. Mercury in the form of ointment and corrosive
sublimate were applied by him externally, the latter for itch; yellow
and red arsenic and sulphates of iron and copper were also among his
external remedies. Borax (which he called tenker), saltpetre, red
coral, various precious stones, and oil of ants, are included among the
internal remedies which he advises.
[Illustration: AVICENNA.