CHAPTER X.
THEIR POSITION IN MEDICAL SCIENCE.
THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.—A CHANGE IN THE FORTUNES OF THE JEWS AND MOORS.—AN EXAMINATION INTO THEIR GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS.—THEIR SKILL IN MEDICAL SCIENCE.—MIRACLE CURE BY CHRISTIAN CLERGY.—JEWISH BODY PHYSICIANS HIGHLY PRIZED AND MUCH SOUGHT.—PROMINENT MEDICAL SCHOOLS AND EMINENT PHYSICIANS.—RASHI.—IBN EZRA.—IBN TIBBON.—MAIMONIDES.—AVENZOAR AVACENNA.
We have witnessed the rise of Islam. We accompanied the Arab on his march of conquest. Breathlessly we stood upon the banks of the Guadalete and awaited the issue of a battle upon which the destiny of nations depended. We followed the triumphal processions of the Arab-Moors into Spain, and our eyes and hearts never ceased rejoicing over the manifold beauties and wonders which Moorish skill spread o'er fair Andalusia, and our tongues ne'er tired speaking of the manifold blessings which Moorish social and domestic and political life and religious tolerance showered lavishly not only upon their own generation, but upon all the generations that have been ever since.
And there was another picture, not so beautiful, but far more instructive; not so cheering, but fuller of pathos. Tearfully we witnessed the siege of Jerusalem and its unparalleled massacre. Heartbroken we followed the despised and spurned and abused, the friendless and homeless Jew, in his vain efforts to find a spot where he might rest his weary head in peace. Our hearts leaped for joy when we beheld the followers of Mohammed—not the followers of the founder of the religion of love—not only restore to the Jew human rights unjustly torn from him, but also offer him the hand of brotherhood. When we parted last we left the Jew and Moor busily engaged in making fair Andalusia, in culture and art and intelligence, the mistress of the world. Then all was peace and joy and sunshine.
We have returned. Five centuries have passed since our last visit. We are now at the end of the fifteenth century. A mighty change has taken place. Peace has turned to war, joy to sorrow, sunshine to darkness. Culture wears the crown of thorns. Art is dragged through the mire. Science is fettered hand and foot. Religious liberty sends forth piteous shrieks from the flames and smoke of the auto-da-fe. Enlightened Europe weeps and trembles. We ask Mercy: "Why weepest thou?" And she sobs forth the name: "Cardinal Ximenes." We ask Art the same question, and she stammers forth: "The Church." Science answers: "The Inquisition." Religious Liberty utters between its death throes the name: "Torquemada." Enlightened Europe weeps and trembles, because the vast storehouses of learning, which Moorish and Jewish intelligence had built up, are about to be consigned to the flames, and the builders themselves are to be extirpated from the soil, upon which they have lived nigh unto eight centuries, and which their own diligent toil has made the wonder of Europe.
"Haste ye," the Spirit of knowledge calleth unto us, "the furnaces are heated, the death-pyres are awaiting impatiently their martyrs, the ships are ready in the harbor to carry off, and give abundance of water to all such who refused the few drops of the water of salvation, the massive gates of the Inquisition dungeons are open, and the instruments of torture are eager for their cruel and inhuman work of death. Haste ye, the moments are precious, gather the knowledge for which you have come, as speedily as you can; tarry, and not a trace nor a record will remain of this most wondrous and fruitful era of Europe's intellectual advance."
Let us heed the warning, and hasten to our task. We had come prepared for a detailed account, but now we must content ourselves with a mere synoptical sketch of the progress made by the Arabs and Jews in literature, art, philosophy and in the mathematical and physical and applied sciences, during the same era when the rest of Europe was yet lying in comparative darkness and barbarism.
A feeling of awe comes over us as we approach our task. We cannot but feel that in dealing with the Arab and Jew in Europe, the period that extends from the beginning of the eighth to the end of the fifteenth century, we are dealing with a divine agency, sent into Europe to rekindle and keep alive the sacred fire of intelligence, which, prior to their coming, had been extinguished by the church and by barbarian conquerors. At this era they are the sole depositories of learning. The second and third chapters of this narrative have acquainted us with the terrible stifling mist of ignorance and its concomitants, fanaticism and cruelty and corruption and intense suffering, which hovered over Europe at the time when the people of the Orient had entered it, and began their intellectual unfolding.
In the East those centers of learning that had not yet passed away were rapidly declining. Antioch, Alexandria, Bagdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, these cities which in their day had made the light of the East more luminous with their light, had drawn in their rays and sent them forth no more. But the Jew and Arab had wandered into Europe before this intellectual decline, and there they fanned the spark of knowledge they had brought with them into such a brilliant and active life, that its light still illumines our mind, and its genial warmth still cheers our heart. The Jew and the Moor have made Europe their everlasting debtor for their services in bridging the yawning chasm which separates ancient from modern culture. With them, most of that ancient knowledge, for which mankind had toiled diligently and untiringly for thousands of years, would have been lost, and lost forever, and modern knowledge, would have been compelled to begin again at the very alphabet, and we to-day might have been some 2,000 or 3,000 years behind. Without their untiring efforts to disperse the poisonous mists, and force their light upon the people, even at the expense of much suffering, the darkest, and most slothful period of European annals which was co-eval with the highest Jewish and Moorish intelligence before that intelligence made itself felt in Europe, might have still surrounded us to-day.