being the De Methodo Medendi, in which he advises that the old drastic purgatives euphorbium, scammony, colocynth, etc., which had been largely replaced by the milder laxatives of the Arabs, should be applied in ointments to the soles of the feet or round the umbilicus, a plan which he had himself employed with great success. Still more interesting is the treatise on the relations of mind and body addressed to his tutor, Rakendytes. That philosopher had asked among other things whether it is better for one's intellect to eat once or twice a day. John replies by advising him to take two-thirds of his food at noon, and one-third in the evening,

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but if you are unwilling to spend time in doing the same thing twice, or are in the habit of eating only once daily," he may continue to do so, for it will make the mind, if not stronger, at least clearer. While in many respects superior to his predecessors, Actuarius has the same faith in complicated prescriptions, and gives one called "Hygia," whose virtues surpass those of all other panaceas, “for if a man takes a portion of it the size of a bean daily it will not only preserve him from all disease, but also defend him against demons, ghosts, and witchcraft". Like most of the universal medicines it contained opium, but the other ingredients are too numerous to be given here.

Actuarius also wrote the best of the numerous mediæval treatises on uroscopy, in which he describes a form of “black water" (hæmoglobinuria?) due to exposure to cold.

NOTE.

The quotation from St. Gregory is given by Jortin, Ecclesiastical History, iv. 71. The substance of the rest of the chapter may be found in Ideler, Physici et Medici Græci Minores, Anna Comnena, Alexias, xv. 7 (the text speaks of the feeding of the 5000 or the 7000, but I have ventured to correct the princess), Demetrius Pepagomenus, Liber de Podagra, Arnheim, 1753; Actuarius, Opera Omnia, Paris, 1556. The work of Myrepsus has been printed in Latin translation only by Stephanus, Medica Artis Principes. The questions discussed by Psellus in his cyclopædia, De Omnifaria Doctrinâ, probably formed favourite subjects of debate in the Byzantine academies. Here are some examples. Are

Some pagans

there more angels or men? More men, for all numbers decrease as they approach one, therefore so do created beings as they approach the One; also men marry, etc. Why does oil make the sea calm? Among other reasons because it floats on the surface forming a covering through which the waves cannot boil up. Is the universe alive? thought so, but we Christians do not admit such a doctrine even to the tips of our ears. Is the sun hot? What causes excessive hunger (bulimia)? Why is the sea salt? Why are tears of stags sweet and those of boars salt? Why does meat become tender when hung in a fig tree?

XXVIII.-ARABIC MEDICINE. (1) THE

TRANSLATORS.

IN the year 632 there issued from the deserts of Arabia a people not entirely uncivilised, though classed by their more cultured neighbours as barbarians, armed with the tremendous forces of religious enthusiasm. Within a century they had annihilated one of the great existing empires, and inflicted a deadly blow upon the other; and after conquering Persia, and stripping Eastern Rome of her fairest provinces, had threatened the very existence of the younger nations of the West, till their career of conquest was checked at last by Frankish valour at the gates of Tours (732).

This display of physical vigour was followed by an intellectual activity hardly less wonderful. A Byzantine emperor was astonished to find that the right of collecting and purchasing Greek manuscripts was among the terms dictated by a victorious barbarian, and that an illustrated copy of Dioscorides was the most acceptable present he could offer to a friendly chieftain. The philosophers of

Constantinople were amazed by the appearance of Moslem writers whom they styled with reluctant admiration "learned savages," while the less cultured Christians of the West soon came to look upon the wisdom of the Saracens as something more than human. It was this people who now took from the hands of unworthy successors of Galen and

Hippocrates the flickering torch of Greek medicine. They failed to restore its ancient splendour, but they, at least, prevented its extinction, and they handed it back after five centuries burning more brightly than before.

The cradle of Arabic medicine was the Nestorian school at Gondisapor, where the first distinguished Arab physician, Harets ben Kaladah, received his education. After practising with success at the Persian Court he returned to Arabia, and became medical adviser to the Prophet himself, who recommended him to his successor, the first Caliph, Abu Bekr. Harets was a Christian, a fact of great importance for the future of Arabic medicine, for even the strictest Moslem doctors confessed that the faithful might lawfully follow the example and precept of the Prophet in using the medical services of unbelievers. The first of the five centuries (750-1250) during which Arabic writers represented the highest form of civilised medicine was devoted to translation. The translators were all Christians, most of them being connected with the school at Gondisapor, but we shall here confine our attention to the distinguished Syrian families of Bachtishua (Bocht-jesu) and Mesue, and the Christian Arab, Honain ben Isaac.

In the year 765 the Caliph al-Mansur, while engaged in founding the city of Bagdad, was seized with an attack of indigestion, and his friends urged him to send for George Bachtishua, superintendent of the hospital at Gondisapor, and the most famous physician in Persia. George came, saw, and cured the patient, and the delighted Caliph retained him at his Court for five years, till, smitten with a mortal disease, he begged to be allowed to die at home. Al-Mansur then tried to convert him to Islam, promising him the joys of paradise, but George replied that he would rather go to his ancestors, whether in heaven or hell; so he was dismissed with rich rewards and a special escort, who brought him yet living to Gondisapor. His son also practised with success at Court, but is less important than his grandson, Gabriel, for more than twenty years physician

to the great Harun al-Rashid and succeeding Caliphs, who, after many changes of fortune, could estimate in his old age that the total value of the fees and presents he had received exceeded £2,000,000. His son, Bachtishua ben Gabriel, was perhaps the most famous of the family, and Oriental historians have much to tell of his favour with the Caliph, Motawakkel (847-861), of the wonderful ebony chariot in which he drove through the streets of Bagdad, of his luxury and liberality, and of his terrible downfall. Once, while seated with the Caliph on his throne, the latter observed a hole in the physician's dress and proceeded to enlarge it as far as the girdle. While thus employed, he asked : "How do you doctors know when a man is mad enough to be put under restraint?" "When he has torn our dresses as far as the girdle," was the reply. Then Motawakkel laughed till he fell on his back, and, on recovering, ordered the physician to be clad in a robe of honour.

For some time Bocht-jesu lived in a manner worthy of his name (Bocht = servant), but at last, led astray by Moslem associates, he fell into sin, and married two of his slave girls on the same day. From that time nothing went well with him. He spent his nights in orgies of wickedness, and his mornings in prayer, repentance, and reading the Gospel; he lost the favour of the Caliph, was deprived of his wealth, and banished to South Arabia, where he wandered in penury and loneliness till he died.

The family of Mesue was closely connected with that of Bachtishua, its founder, an apothecary and dispenser at Gondisapor, having been a protégé of George, who, noticing that he admired a female slave belonging to David ben Serapion (another Gondisapor physician and translator), bought her for £20, or £2 10s., according to another authority, and gave her to Mesuë as his wife. He was an illiterate man, but having, after thirty years' experience of dispensing, gained an intimate acquaintance with drugs, he aspired to higher things, quarrelled with the Bachtishuas, went off to Bagdad, and set up as a physician. He was so

fortunate as to cure the Grand Vizier's favourite of an ophthalmia, and the Caliph al-Rashid being soon afterwards attacked by the same complaint, the Vizier recommended Mesuë. "You a physician," said Gabriel, surveying the former apothecary with contempt; but he cured the Caliph in two days, and was rewarded with a pension of £1 a week. Soon afterwards Harun's sister was taken seriously ill, the friendly Vizier again recommended the man who had been thirty years at Gondisapor, and Mesuë and Gabriel once more met in consultation. The former declared the patient would die. "He lies," said Gabriel, and the prophet of evil was cast into prison to await the event, but on the death of the princess Mesuë was released and raised to an equality with Bachtishua, and the two physicians appear to have become more harmonious, for Gabriel's daughter married Michael, son of Mesuë.

But Mesue's most famous son was John, known to the Christians as Mesue the Elder, who was appointed by that great patron of science, the Caliph al-Mamun, president of a college of translators, and who himself founded a sort of academy for scientific disputations. He was probably more feared than loved by his subordinates, for his manners were abrupt, and his temperament cynical. Once, when seriously ill, the Nestorian clergy came, as was their wont, to pray for him. "What are these rascals doing here?" asked Mesuë. "We are praying that God will restore you to health." "A few pills," was the answer, "will do more good than all your prayers, though they go on till the Resurrection; and he drove them out.

The Bachtishuas and Mesuës were Syrians, and their knowledge both of Greek and Arabic was probably imperfect; their work, therefore, was soon superseded by that of the greatest of the translators, one of the greatest men of the ninth century, the Erasmus of the Arabic Renaissance, Honain ben Isaac. About the year 820 there came to Bagdad a Christian Arab from Hira, who requested John Mesuë to receive him as pupil. But the people of Hira were notorious