So far as history furnishes us with any information on the subject, the Nestorians who lived in Persia, Syria and Mesopotamia were Christians of a remarkably liberal type. They appear to have been an unusually peaceable people, for not only were they kindly disposed toward one another, but they seem to have been on the best of terms with their Jewish neighbors, who, like themselves, were eager after knowledge. Already at a very early period there existed at Djondisabour—a town which had been founded in the Province of Khorassan, in the northeastern part of Persia, about the year 260 A. D., by Sapor II., King of that country—a school in which the medicine of Hippocrates was taught. Freind, in his “History of Physick” (London, 1727), says that about the year 272 A. D. the Emperor Aurelian (Lucius Domitius Aurelianus), as a compliment to his daughter, who was the wife of the King of Persia, sent to Djondisabour, the city in which she resided, several Greek physicians; and Abulpharagius, the Arab historian (thirteenth century), intimates that these were the men who conducted the teaching in the newly established medical school. Another possibility suggests itself. After the death of Alexander the Great in Babylon (323 B. C.), from malarial fever, it is not unlikely that some of the numerous Greek physicians who accompanied the army in an official character, and who, we are warranted in believing, were exceptionally well educated, decided not to remain in that unhealthy district, but to settle in some of the neighboring towns (e.g., Nisibis in the hill country to the north of Babylon, or Sura to the east of the river Tigris); and that these men also contributed their share toward the planting and perpetuation of Greek medicine in this district of the Orient. However, the salient fact in this period of the history of medicine is this: When Almansur, the Caliph of Bagdad (712 to 775 A. D.), made up his mind to introduce Greek medicine into his kingdom and looked around for the ways and means of accomplishing this, he found at the city of Djondisabour men who were not only well versed in Greek medicine, but who at the same time were so thoroughly grounded in all departments of scholarship that they could at once begin the work of translating the writings of Hippocrates and other classical medical authors into Arabic, the language of the Mohammedans. But at this stage of affairs the existence of a serious obstacle was discovered. The writings which it was proposed to translate were not immediately obtainable, and it therefore became necessary to institute without delay a vigorous search for the books required. In order that the reader may appreciate fully the difficulties which Almansur had to overcome, in this matter of a scarcity of Greek originals, it seems best to pause at this point, and to review briefly some of the facts which bear upon the question at issue.
The Wholesale Destruction of Medical Literature during the Early Centuries of the Christian Era.—The invasion of Rome in 410 A. D. was one of the first events which entailed a serious loss of the Greek medical books that had been accumulating for several centuries in that city. Fortunately, not a few of these works were rescued in time by the church authorities and deposited for safe keeping in the various monasteries scattered all over the Roman Empire. A still more serious destruction of books occurred about the year 638 A. D., when Amrou, a famous Arabian warrior, captured Alexandria and—under the instructions of his master, Omar ben Khattab—destroyed the greater part of the contents of the famous libraries located in that city. The narrative of this event, as told by Lucien Le Clerc, is as follows:—
John the Grammarian,[43] who was living at that time in Alexandria, held the following conversation with Amrou on a certain occasion: “You have inspected all the edifices of Alexandria, and have sequestrated all their contents. I have no objections to your appropriating everything that may be of use to you; there are certain things, however, which you may not wish to possess, but which are highly prized by us.”
“What are those objects?” inquired Amrou.
“The works on philosophy, which are contained in the public libraries,” John replied.
“I can do nothing about them without a special order from the Prince of Believers, Omar ben Khattab,” was the answer given by Amrou.
John’s wish having in the meantime been conveyed by the General to Omar, the latter sent this reply:—
“As to the books of which you speak, I have this to say. If their contents agree with what is written in the word of God, the books are of no use to us, the Holy Writ being sufficient for our guidance. But if they are at variance with God’s word, then surely they should be destroyed.”
Amrou therefore ordered all the books to be sent to the bathing establishments of Alexandria, to be used as fuel in heating the baths. So great was the number of books contained in the libraries that it took six months to consume them all. (Sismondi questions the correctness of this account.)
While the invasion of Rome by the Barbarians in the fifth century and the capture of Alexandria by the Arabs in the early part of the seventh gave rise to an enormous loss of valuable books relating to medicine and philosophy in general, these were by no means the only occasions when books were probably destroyed in great quantities. Wars were frequent in those days and towns were constantly being sacked. Everywhere throughout the East the modern traveler encounters the ruins of large cities, and in those cities—the centres, as they were, of wealth and culture—there must have been large collections of books. It is not at all strange, therefore, that when the Caliph Almansur made a serious beginning of the work which was to convert the Arabs into rivals of the ancient Greeks, he should have found a great scarcity of medical works which, after being translated, were to serve as manuals of instruction. However, his ambition was very great, his wealth almost inexhaustible, and his associates eager to aid him in realizing the renaissance which he had planned for his people; and, as will appear later on, he and those who aided him eventually succeeded in overcoming this apparently insurmountable obstacle.