"Study carefully the antecedents of the man to whose care you propose to confide all you have most dear in this world,—that is, your life and the lives of your wife and children. If the man is dissipated, is given to frivolous pleasures, cultivates with too much zeal the arts foreign to his profession, still more if he be addicted to wine and debauchery, refrain from committing into such hands lives so precious."
His greatest publication was Continens—extracts compiled from all authors for his own use—divided into thirty-seven books, constituting an abridgment of the science of medicine and surgery up to his time; and, notwithstanding its imperfect state, this work was held in greatest reverence, and was a common source of knowledge among Orientals long after his day.
Haly-Abbas, a Persian by birth, flourished fifty years after Rhazes, and died A.D. 994. His Almalelci, in twenty volumes, constituted a quite complete system of theory and practice of medicine, which, however, was in large measure taken from Rhazes's Continens. It is generally regarded as the best work of any of the physicians of the Arabic Period; it is divided into three parts—a book on Health, a book on Death, and a book of Signs—and it is interesting to know that the portion devoted to midwifery and obstetrics was in the hands not only of the profession, but also of the midwives.
Avicenna—Latinized form of his Arabic name, Ebn Sina—was born in Bokhara in 980. From his earliest youth he manifested a remarkable disposition for scientific study, and it is claimed that he mastered the entire Koran at the age of ten years; also that he devoted his entire days and the greater part of his nights to research, mastering philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and, later, medicine, which he studied at the university at Bagdad, in which city his talents were chiefly exhibited. He was received at court, loaded with favors, and elevated to the dignity of Vizier, but suddenly fell into disgrace, was deprived of property, imprisoned, and even threatened with execution. After two years, however, he was restored to liberty, and once more possessed the consideration of the public and the court, becoming the recipient of new honors. Meantime he had given himself up to intemperance, by which his previously robust constitution was undermined, and this, with excessive labor, brought about his demise at the too early age of fifty-six, in the year 1037. He was author of several books, the chief being the Canon Medicinae, which remained a classic for six centuries, constituting the medical code of Asia and Saracenic Europe; no author since Galen had enjoyed so wide and extensive authority in the medical world; and in the various medical schools professors, for the most part, confined themselves to reading the Canon from their desks, explaining and commenting upon its text. The work was divided into five volumes, of which the first two comprised the principles of physiology, pathology, hygiene, and therapeutics, arranged to conform to the teachings of Aristotle and Galen; the third and fourth dealt with treatment; and the fifth wras devoted to the preparation and composition of remedies. Avicenna appears to have surpassed in subtlety both Aristotle and Galen; he was fond of metaphysical speculation, and his works were too much filled out with subtleties of language rather than with true science. Authors of this period were fond of torturing in every way possible the writings which they undertook to edit or quote from, and, instead of devoting themselves to original research, wasted time in seeking for vague and hidden meanings. That man was most esteemed as learned who could see the greatest subtlety in some passage from one of the ancient writers; consequently, that which was obscure or unintelligible was deemed the most sublime and philosophic. A very brief study of the Canon, for instance, will show this, while in graphic pictures of disease the work by no means approaches those of Aretæus or Alexander of Tralles, for Avicenna too often contented himself with mentioning merely a list of symptoms without indicating in any way their progression, characters, or duration. Undoubtedly just was the criticism of an Arabian poet: "His philosophy had no sound foundation, and his medical knowledge availed him naught for the possession of personal health and long life."
Albucassis was born in Zahra, near Cordova, about the beginning of the eleventh century, and is supposed to have died A.D. 1122, at the advanced age of one hundred and one. He was author of an abridgment, or compilation, devoted to the practice of medicine, the only novelty of which is a small portion devoted to surgery, in which are described certain instruments. He says:—
"I have detailed briefly the methods of operations; I have described all necessary instruments, and I present their forms by means of drawings; in a word, I have omitted nothing of what can shed light to the profession.... But one of the principal reasons why it is so rare to meet a successful surgeon is that the apprenticeship of this branch is very long, and he who devotes himself to it must be versed in the science of anatomy, of which Galen has transmitted us the knowledge.... In fine, no one should permit himself to attempt this difficult art without having a perfept knowledge of anatomy and the action of remedies."
Not a word is said about dissections, however, from which we conclude that they were not tolerated in his time. He resorted enthusiastically to the cautery, and recommended it in spontaneous luxations and the commencement of curvature of the spine. He refers particularly to instrumental delivery and the extraction of the after-birth, and, when speaking of fractures and dislocations, he remarks: "This part of surgery has been abandoned to men of vulgar and uncultivated minds, for which reason it has fallen into undeserved contempt."
