Sanjahal, another learned Indian, wrote on medicine and astrology. From the science of the stars he applied himself to the symptoms of diseases, on which he wrote a book in ten chapters. He gave the symptoms of four hundred and four diseases. He also wrote on The Imagination of Diseases. Shánák wrote on poisons and the veterinary art. Jawdar was a philosopher and a physician who wrote a book on nativities. Mankah the Indian was learned in the art of medicine, and “gentle in his method of treatment.” He lived in the days of Haroun-al-Raschid.
Salih, son of Bolah the Indian, was “well skilled in treatment, and had power and influence in the promotion of science.”
Kankah the Indian, says Prof. H. Wilson, was very celebrated in the history of Arabian astronomy. He says that it is certain that the astronomy and medicine of the Hindus were cultivated anteriorly to those of the Greeks, by the Arabs of the eighth century. “It is clear that the Charaka, the Susruta, the treatises called Nidán on diagnosis, and others on poisons, diseases of women, and therapeutics, all familiar to Hindu science, were translated and studied by the Arabs in the days of Haroun and Mansur, either from the originals, or translations made at a still earlier period into the language of Persia.”[716]
We may conveniently mention here the famous Jew of Spain, Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, or Maimonides (died 1198), a native of Cordova, who was profoundly learned in mathematics, medicine, and other arts. He retired to Egypt, where he wrote books on medicine, which were much read. He advised his patients never to sleep in the daytime, and at night only on the side. He recommended them not to retire to rest till three to four hours after supper.[717]
Medical etiquette was rather strict. “Operations performed by the hand, such as venesection, cauterization, and incision of arteries, are not becoming a physician of respectability and consideration. They are suitable for the physician’s assistants only. These servants of the physician should also do other operations, such as incision of the eyelids, removing the veins in the white of the eye, and the removal of cataract. For an honourable physician nothing further is becoming than to impart to the patient advice with reference to food and medicine. Far be it from him to practise any operation with the hand. So say we!”[718]
Dentistry was practised, but it was considered by the Arabs, as by the Greek and Roman doctors, a very inferior branch of the profession, and was, for the most part, as with ourselves, till very recently relegated to uneducated persons. Midwifery also was, to a great extent, neglected by the higher class of physicians. The Arabian faculty esteemed most highly medicine proper, though pharmacy and materia medica were especially studied. The professors were paid by the State, and handsomely as a rule. Their text books were the works of the Greek physicians, especially Hippocrates and Galen. A sort of matriculation examination was required before a student could enter the great schools, and he was subjected to professional examinations (not very severe, presumably) before he was permitted to practise. The Arabian physicians were usually men of the highest culture; not only were they men of science, but of philosophy and literature also. Great mystery was combined with Arabian medical practice; astrology was the handmaid of medicine, and charms entered largely into therapeutics. The physicians wrote prescriptions with purgative ink; so that “take this!” was meant literally when the doctor gave the patient his prescription. It had to be swallowed in due form.
Although the great civilizations of the East date their origins from a period far more remote than those of the West, they have lagged far behind the West in progress. Professor Freeman defines European society as progressive, legal, monogamous, and, for the last fifteen hundred years, a Christian society; the East he defines as stationary, arbitrary, polygamous, and Mahometan.[719] The dominant note of Oriental history is sameness; a monotony which enables us to read in the story of to-day that which took place amongst Eastern peoples a thousand years ago. The history of a single city of Europe is of infinitely greater interest to the student of humanity and the history of civilization than that of a whole nation of the East. The history of Florence alone is of greater importance, from this point of view, than that of all China. There is, however, one marvellous history, that of Mahomet and his creed, which excels in interest that of any other man of the Oriental nations. “Nowhere,” says Freeman, “in the history of the world can we directly trace such mighty effects to the personal agency of a single mortal.”[720]
CHAPTER III.
RISE OF THE MONASTERIES.
Alchemy the parent of Chemistry.