The Arab author who acquired by far the greatest fame in Western
lands, and who, indeed, shared with Galen the unquestioning obedience
of myriads of medical practitioners throughout Europe until
Paracelsus shook his authority five hundred years after his death,
was Al-Hussein-Abou-Ali-Ben-Abdallah-Ebn-Sina, which picturesque name
loses its Eastern atmosphere in the transmutation of its two concluding
phrases into Avicenna. This famous man was born at Bokhara in 980; at
twelve years of age he knew the Koran by heart; at sixteen he was a
skilful physician; at eighteen he operated on the Caliph Nuhh with
such brilliant success that his fame was established. In the course
of a varied life he was at one time a Vizier, and soon afterwards
in prison for being concerned in some sedition. He escaped from
prison and lived for a long time concealed in the house of a friendly
apothecary, where he wrote a large part of his voluminous “Canon.” He
spent the later years of his life at Ispahan, where he was in great
favour with the Caliph Ola-Oddaula, and he died at Hamdan in 1038 in
the fifty-eighth year of his age. He had led an irregular life, and it
was said of him that all his philosophy failed to make him moral, and
all his knowledge of medicine left him unable to take care of his own
health.
Competent critics who have studied the medical teaching of Avicenna
have not been able to discover wherein its merits have justified the
high esteem to which it attained. The explanation appears to be that
what Avicenna lacked in originality he made up in method. The main
body of his “Canon” is a judicious selection from the Greek and Latin
physicians, and from Rhazes and other of his Arabic predecessors.
He wrote a great deal on drugs and remedies, but it has been found
impossible to identify many of the substances of his Materia Medica, as
in many cases the names he gives evidently do not apply to those given
by Serapion, Rhazes, and other writers. He often prescribed camphor,
and alluded to several different kinds; a solution of manna was a
favourite medicine with him; he regarded corrosive sublimate as the
most deadly of all poisons, but used it externally; iron he had three
names for, probably different compounds; he had great faith in gold,
silver, and precious stones; it was probably he who introduced the
silvering and gilding of pills, but his object was not to make them
more pleasant to take, but to add to their medicinal effect.
Serapion the younger, and Mesuë the younger, who both lived soon after
the time of Avicenna, were principally writers on Materia Medica, from
whose works later authors borrowed freely.
The subsequent Arab authorities of particular note came from among
the Western Saracens. Albucasis of Cordova, Avenzoar of Seville, and
Averrhoes of Cordova, who are all believed to have flourished in the
twelfth century, were the most celebrated. Albucasis was a great
surgeon and describes the operations of his period with wonderful
clearness and intelligence. Avenzoar was a physician who interested
himself largely in pharmacy. He was reputed to have lived to the age of
135 and to have accumulated experience from his 20th year to the day
of his death. Averrhoes knew Avenzoar personally, but was younger. He
was a philosopher and somewhat of a freethinker who interested himself
in medical matters. We are naturally more concerned with Avenzoar than
with the others.
It is evident from the books left by Avenzoar, whose full name was
Abdel-Malek-Abou-Merwan-Ebn-Zohr, that in his time the practices of
medicine, surgery, and pharmacy were quite distinct in Spain, and he
apologises to the higher branch of the profession for his interest
in those practices which were usually left to their servants. But he
states that from his youth he took delight in studying how to make
syrups and electuaries, and a strong desire to know the operation
of medicines and how to combine them and to extract their virtues.
He writes about poisons and antidotes; has a chapter on the oil
alquimesci, which Freind renders oil of eggs, and Sprengel calls
oil of dates. Avenzoar says his father brought it from the East, and
that it was a marvellous lithontryptic. He tells how mastic corrects
scammony, and sweet almonds colocynth. He is the earliest writer
to refer to the medicinal virtues of the bezoar stones. He gives a
different account of the origin of these stones from that of other
authors. The best, he says, comes from the East and is got from the
eyes of stags. The stags eat serpents to make them strong, and at once
to prevent any injury their instinct impels them to run into streams
and stand in the water up to their necks. They do not drink any water.
If they did they would die immediately; but standing in the stream
gradually reduces the force of the poison, and then a liquor exudes by
the eyelids which coagulates and forms a stone which may grow to the
size of a chestnut, which ultimately falls off. According to another
Arab author, Abdalanarack, the bezoar stone acquired such a celebrity
in Spain that a palace in Cordova was given in exchange for one.
Moses Maimonides, the most famous Jewish scholar and theologian of the
middle ages, must be mentioned among the exponents of Arab pharmacy.
He was born at Cordova in 1139, and studied medicine under Averrhoes,
but when he was twenty-five the then Mohammedan ruler of Spain required
him to be converted or quit the kingdom. Maimonides therefore went
to Cairo, and became physician to Saladin, the well-known hero of
Crusade wars, who was then Sultan of Egypt. Among his duties he had
to superintend the preparation of theriaca and mithridatium for the
Court. The drugs for these compounds, Maimonides says, had to be
brought from the East and the West at great expenditure of time and
money. Consequently, “the illustrious Kadi Fakhil,” (who was apparently
one of Saladin’s ministers), “whose days may God prolong, ordered the
most humble of his servants in 595 (A.D. 1198) to compose a
treatise, small, and showing what ought to be done immediately for a
person bitten by a venomous animal.” The treatise which Maimonides
composed, in obedience to this order, he called “Fakhiliteh.” This
small popular manual reflects in general the pharmacy of Spain and is
of no particular interest. The author considers that for all kinds of
poisons and venoms the most efficacious antidote is an emerald, laid on
the stomach or held in the mouth; and he notes the virtues of theriaca,
mithridatium, and of bezoar. But the Kadi was thinking of poor people,
and therefore more ordinary remedies were also named. A pigeon killed
and cut in two pieces might be applied to painful wounds, but if
this was not available warm vinegar with flour and olive oil might
be substituted. Vomiting must be excited, and to destroy the virus a
mixture of asafœtida, sulphur, salt, onions, mint, orange-pips, and the
excrement of pigeons, ducks, or goats, compounded with honey and taken
in wine, was recommended. The wisdom of Rhazes, of Avenzoar, and of
other great authorities was also drawn from.