The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800

by Albert H. Buck

Eben el Khammar, born in 942 A. D., was a Christian and an excellent practitioner. He was well versed in the science of medicine and a writer of some importance. Date of death unknown.

Abou Sahl el Messihy, who was also a Christian, was a contemporary and intimate friend of Avicenna. He died in 1000 A. D. He was the author of a complete and very useful summary of medicine, entitled “Kitab el Meya”; and the Arab historian Ossaibiah speaks in terms of admiration of another treatise which he wrote and which bears the title, “Exposition of God’s wisdom as Manifested in the Creation of Man.”

Abou Soleiman Essedjestany, commonly called “El Mantaky.” The dates of his birth and death are not known. He wrote a number of treatises, and—among others—one on “The Organization of the Human Faculties.”

Aboul Hassan Ahmed Etthabary, a native of Thabaristan, in the Province of Khorassan. He was employed as a physician by the Emir Rokn eddoula ben Bouïh, and is known as the author of a compendium of medicine entitled: “Hippocratic Methods of Treatment.” He died in 970 A. D.

El Comry was one of the most eminent medical practitioners of his time, and was in high favor with the royal household. He wrote a compendium of medicine which bears the title “R’any ou Many,” and he was also the author of a treatise on the causes of disease. His death occurred toward the end of the tenth century of the Christian era.

Alfaraby, who is highly commended by Avicenna, should be classed among the philosophers rather than among the physicians. He died in 950 A. D.

The sixth Persian physician of some distinction mentioned by Le Clerc is Ali ben el Abbas—usually spoken of as Haly Abbas. The dates of his birth and death are not stated by any of the authorities, but it is known that he was a native of Ahouaz, a small town on the Karun river, to the southeast of Bagdad, and that he was still living in 994 A. D. Haly Abbas, it is claimed, was the first medical writer who ventured to prepare a complete and systematically arranged Practice of Medicine. He gave it the title of Al-Maleky—“The Royal Book,”—and dedicated it to the Emir Adhad-ad-Daula, whose private physician he was. It is a much smaller treatise than the “Continens” of Rhazes, and somewhat more complete than the same author’s shorter work—the “Mansoury.” It covers the entire field of medicine and is distinguished by its very practical character. It was first translated into Latin in 1127 A. D.

Haly Abbas, in one of his treatises, speaks of Hippocrates in the following terms: “Hippocrates, who is the prince of the medical art and the first physician who ever wrote a book on this art, is the author of many treatises on all sorts of medical topics.... But he writes in such a very concise manner that much of what he says is obscure, and as a consequence the reader, if he wishes to understand him, is obliged to seek the aid of a commentary.”

Egypt.—The dynasty of the Fatimides—the descendants of Fatima (the daughter of Mohammed) and of Ismael, a great-grandson of Ali, the fourth of Mohammed’s successors—reigned over Egypt for nearly two centuries (10th to 12th of the present era), and they showed toward the scientists the same spirit of generosity that had been manifested toward them by the Abbasides in the earlier part of their reign. In 970 A. D. Moëz Eddoula drove out the reigning family, assumed the title of Caliph, and founded the city of Cairo. In 972 he built the celebrated mosque Al Azhar and constructed, as a sort of annex to it, a school, a veritable university, where ultimately all the sciences were taught. It throve vigorously, and students flocked to it in great numbers from all quarters of the Moslem empire. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries Egypt was once more, as it had been in the palmy days of Alexandria, the home of many excellent and vigorous institutions of learning. Among the physicians, however, who received their education in medicine at Cairo during this long period, there was not one who attained great eminence.

At the end of the eleventh century the Crusaders, under the leadership of Godfrey de Bouillon and others, made their first serious attack on Palestine and Syria, and from that time onward, for about two centuries, they and the different armies sent out successively from Europe carried on almost constant warfare, which Michaud the distinguished French historian (about 1800 A. D.) calls the product of a pious delirium. Wars of religion are the most savage and pitiless of all wars, says Le Clerc, and this was emphatically true of those waged by the Crusaders. On the other hand, says the same writer, “the tolerance exhibited at that period by the Arabs in religious matters is a well-attested fact, and it owes its origin to the circumstance that their scientific education was conducted by Christians. Of Saladin’s fifteen physicians two-thirds were either Jews or Christians. Cultivation and good training were the characteristics of the Arabs at that period of their history, whereas fanaticism and brute force were the distinguishing features of the European soldiers. Several hundred thousand adventurers first ravaged Europe and then pounced upon Asia. At Antioch Godfrey de Bouillon committed all sorts of excesses, and then, when he had taken Jerusalem, he massacred 70,000 of its inhabitants—Jews and Musulmans. Eighty years later, Saladin retook Jerusalem; and, with the exception of a comparatively small number, he allowed all of his captives to go free. His brother, Malek el Adel, paid the ransom of 2000 of the prisoners. Contrast these fruits of civilization with the barbarism of the European conquerors under Godfrey de Bouillon. Another result of the Crusades was this: The Franks lost a good deal of their savagery through contact with the Arabs. At a still later period Western Europe drew a large part of her supplies of knowledge from Spain—i.e., from the Musulmans.”