On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art

by James Mactear

Seminaries were founded at these centres for the rabbis, and constant intercourse was kept up between them. It was in these schools that the Talmud was compiled from the traditionary exposition of the Old Testament, between A.D. 200 and A.D. 500, when it was completed, and received as a rule of faith by most of the scattered Jews.

That the cultivation of science was not neglected we may be sure from the keen interest taken in all ages by the Jews in magical and astrological inquiries. We read in Apuleius, in his defence on the accusation of magic brought against him, that of the “four tutors appointed to educate the princes of Persia, one had to instruct him specially in the magic of Zoroaster and Oromazes, which is the worship of the gods.” Apuleius wrote about 200 A.D., and his works teem with references to magic and astrology.

The fact that Jews and Christians were looked on as learned men will not surprise us, when we find that the Jews had established schools so long anterior to the foundation of the college of Baghdad. The rapid progress made by the Arabians, and the wise policy of the Abasside Caliphs, under whose judicious rule learning was so liberally encouraged, aided by the position of Baghdad, which formed, as it were, a centre to which the wisdom of both eastern and western minds gravitated, attracted to their schools all those of every nation who boasted themselves philosophers.

The first translations from the Greek authors are supposed to have been made about A.D. 745, and are known to have been on the subjects of philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. These translations are understood to have been made by Christian or Jewish physicians.

As we have seen, the Jews had already established themselves at Baghdad, and had founded schools of their own previous to the formation of the college under Caliph Al-Mansour; but further than this we find the Christians spread widely over the countries of Asia Minor, and we are told, on the authority of Cosmo-Indicopleustes, that so early as A.D. 535 there was in almost every large town in India a Christian Church under the Bishop of Seleucia.

With these facts before us—1st, that Christian physicians were the leaders of the Arabian school in the eighth century; 2nd, that large numbers of Christian churches were actually in existence in India at least two hundred years previously to the establishment of the college at Baghdad; and 3rd, that Baghdad was almost, as it wore, the central point of the great caravan route which from time immemorial had been the course of communication between the East and West, can we doubt that an extensive intercourse must have taken place, and should we not expect to find some traces, if not the effects, of Indian science on the teaching of the Arabian school.[1]

In Vol. VIII. of the Journal of Education we find a notice that “Professor Dietz, of the University of Königsberg, who had spent five years of his life in visiting the principal libraries of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, and England, in search of manuscripts of Greek, Roman, and Oriental writers on medicine, is now engaged in publishing his ‘Analecta Medica.’

“The work contains several interesting papers on the subject of physical science among the Indians and Arabians, and communicates several introductory notices and illustrations from native Eastern writers. Dietz proves that the late Greek physicians were acquainted with the medical works of the Hindus, and availed themselves of their medicaments; but he more particularly shows that the Arabians were familiar with them, and extolled the healing art, as practised by the Indians, quite as much as that in use among the Greeks.

“It appears from Ibn Osaibe’s testimony (from whose biographical work Dietz has given a long abstract on the lives of Indian physicians), that a variety of treatises on medical science were translated from the Sanscrit into Persian and Arabic, particularly the more important compilations of Charaka and Susruta, which are still held in estimation in India; and that Manka and Saleh—the former of whom translated a special treatise on poisons into Persian—even held appointments as body-physicians at the Court of Harun-al-Raschid.”

As the age of the medical works of Charaka and Susruta is incontestably much more ancient than that of any other work on the subject (except the Ayur Veda)—as we shall see when we come to consider the science of the Hindoos—this in itself would be sufficient to show that the Arabians were certainly not the originators of either medical or chemical science.