Rome, in its decadence, was too much occupied with the intrigues and villainies of the factions by which it was ultimately destroyed, to spare any time for the culture of science. It was not until after the total disappearance of the Eastern Empire, and the hollow tranquillity which succeeded the triumphs of Mahomet, and the subsequent subjugation of Spain by the Moors, that learning reared its head in Alexandria, and the Arabian physicians came into view.
Although Greece had disappeared, even in the noonday of its glory, its literature never possessed more devoted admirers, nor more faithful exponents than are to be found among the Arabian philosophers, and yet what a striking contrast is exhibited in the characters of the two people. Whilst making the philosophy of Greece their own, they by no means lost their distinctiveness and individuality. The Greeks delighted in all that was brilliant and fascinating, like the beautiful scenery of Attica and Asia Minor. The Arabs were thoughtful and grave, monotonous and arid, like the deserts they inhabited. The genius of poetry illumined all the meditations of the former, and their thoughts were graceful, even in their errors; whilst the reflections of the latter were dull and melancholy, albeit they were based on truths.
A dreary night now ensues—we have no name of note until Paulus Ægineta in 640—but what a series of historically grand events interpose: The invasion of Europe by the Huns—Division of the Roman Empire—Taking of Rome by Alaric—Visigoths established in Spain—Saxon heptarchy begun—Conquest of Italy by Totila—Birth of Mahomet, down to the taking of Alexandria by the Arabs—Greece and Rome having virtually disappeared; and our next author (Paulus) probably present at the burning of the great library of the Ptolemies.
Paulus Ægineta is entitled to our homage, as the author of an abridgment of the works of Galen, and many excellent treatises on medical subjects, especially on those incident to childbed, and the diseases of women; he was the first writer upon small-pox and measles, and the originator of the theory of zymosis, which has received so much attention of late. Paulus died about the middle of the seventh century, and with him expired the last of the Greek writers upon medicine. His labours have been thought worthy of being translated by the Sydenham Society.
Avicenna, who lived in the year 980, deserves a fuller notice than we can afford him; his works are said to present great clearness and acuteness. At the early age of eighteen he was chosen Physician to the Court of the Caliph of Bagdad, where for some offence he was imprisoned, and ultimately died. He has been called the “Hippocrates of the Arabs.”
Rhazes was contemporary with Avicenna, and has attracted the respectful attention of the lovers of ancient medicine. His most esteemed work is a treatise on small-pox, which was translated by Dr. Mead in 1548.
I will conclude these sketches of the Arabian schoolmen with a brief notice of Averroes, the most eminent of them:—
This profound scholar was born at Cordova, in Spain, of which city his father was the alcade, about the year 1120. He was educated in Morocco, then in its glory, and in the celebrated schools there studied law, philosophy, and medicine. His admiration for Aristotle was unbounded, and his unwearied application to the examination of that great man’s works, secured for him the reputation of being the ablest commentator on the Aristotelian philosophy. He rose to the dignity of a judge in Morocco, but the freedom of his opinions being in advance of the age, he was imprisoned for some years, and only released on recanting his errors; he died 1206, during the Caliphate of Almanzer.
The glories of the Moorish power now began to wane, and after repeated discomfitures in 1516, that intelligent and highly civilized people were finally expelled by Ferdinand the Catholic: the cross triumphs—the crescent retires, and takes with it all that is admirable in arts, or humanizing in science; the Spaniard has chased away Mahomet, and receives the Inquisition as the first-fruits of his conquest.
The war against opinion was carried on so vigorously that Copernicus, whose acute perception had discovered the errors of Aristotle’s theory of heavenly bodies, was fiercely denounced. Copernicus was born in Westphalia in 1473, he studied at Cracow, where he received the degree of Doctor of Medicine; at Bologna his piercing genius discovered that the sun was the centre of the planetary system, that the earth was a planet and revolved round the sun like other planets, and thus was first made known the true system of the universe. These discoveries being distasteful to the church, the Pope issued a sentence of excommunication; and the great astronomer died with a heart oppressed by such unmerited persecution.