Chronicles of Pharmacy, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by A. C. Wootton

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.

Avicenna.

As represented on the diploma of the Pharmaceutical Society.

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.