for stupidity, so, after a short trial, John rejected him, and advised him to adopt an occupation requiring less intelligence. Honain, not to be discouraged, went to Greece, where he spent two years studying the language and collecting the works of physicians and philosophers. With these he returned to Bagdad, and began to translate and comment upon the writings of Galen and Hippocrates in a way unknown before. Even the aged Gabriel attended his lectures and professed himself edified. He never received less than its weight in gold for any of his manuscripts, and his fame attracted at length the notice of the Caliph, who appointed him a member of his medical staff. But his ability and success soon produced envious rivals, who suggested that Honain knew too much Greek, that he was in the pay of the Byzantine Court, and probably would not hesitate, on favourable opportunity, to poison the Caliph's generals or the Caliph himself. To test the character of his physician Motawakkel pretended he wished to get rid of an enemy, and ordered Honain to prepare a deadly poison. On his refusal he was cast into prison, but continuing obstinate was again brought before the Caliph, who pointed to a heap of rich dresses, gold, and jewels, and to the instruments of torture. The former, he declared, were the reward of obedience, but a second refusal should be punished by an immediate and agonising death. The intrepid Honain was unmoved; two things, he said, prevented his compliance-his religion, which forbade him to injure even his enemies, and his profession, which was instituted for the salvation of mankind, and which bound him by an oath to administer no noxious drug. "Excellent reasons," said Caliph, who loaded him with presents and restored him to his former honours. But the malice of his enemies, among whom we regret to find Bachtishua ben Gabriel, was unsatisfied. While in Greece Honain seems to have taken part in the great controversy on image worship, and to have become a zealous iconoclast. His enemies now procured an image or picture of the Virgin and Child, and showed it to the Caliph, who asked whether all Christians reverenced such things. "All,

except one of your own subjects, an impious man who believes in nothing," and they named Honain. The physician was summoned. "Here," said Motawakkel, doubtless delighted at setting the "idolaters" by the ears, "here is a representation of your God and His Mother." "God forbid!" cried Honain. "He cannot be represented; that is only an image such as they put in churches and elsewhere." "Then you think nothing of it, you would not mind spitting on it?" And, in excess of iconoclastic zeal, Honain spat upon the sacred image. The Christians appear to have enjoyed considerable liberty of internal discipline; the Caliph refused to protect his physician from the consequence of his act, and Honain was excommunicated, imprisoned, and repeatedly scourged by order of the Catholicus of Bagdad. He is said to have died of the ill treatment, or by his own hand, but a more authentic account relates that he was restored to his office and died, “chief of the physicians of Bagdad," in December, 873. Honain translated most of the works of Hippocrates and Galen, the great compilations of Oribasius and Paulus, the Timæus of Plato, many works of Aristotle, the Geometry of Euclid, and last, but not least, the Septuagint, from Greek into Arabic. He also wrote original works, one of which, the Introduction to Medicine, was much read in the mediæval universities, and which the reader will find translated in appendix iv.

NOTE.

My authorities for the historical part of this and the four following chapters are: Barhebræus, Chronicon Syriacum (Syriac and Latin), Leipzig, 1789, and Historia Dynastiarum (Arabic and Latin), Oxford, 1663; Hadji Kalfa, Lexikon Bibliographicum (Arabic and Latin), London, 1855; Wüstenfeld, Geschichte der Arabischen, Aerzte, Göttingen, 1840; Reiske and Fabri, Opuscula Medica ex Monimentis Arabum, Halle, 1776; Von Hammer-Purgstall, Literaturgeschichte der Araber, Vienna, 1850, and Gemäldesaal Moslemitischer Herrscher, Darmstadt, 1839; Le Clerc, Histoire de la Médecine Arabe, Paris, 1876; Kremer, Culturgeschichte des Orients unter den Chalifen, Vienna, 1875.

Money values are given in English form, the gold dinar being esti

mated at ten shillings and the silver dirhem at sixpence, which is about the average metallic value of the coins which have come down to us. The following may help to decide the more difficult question of their actual worth at the time. Homicide might be atoned for under the Caliphs by a fine of 1000 dinars, or 100 camels, or 200 cows, 2000 sheep, or 200 rich dresses. Abdallah ben Aglab, Viceroy of Africa under AlRashid gave his cavalry 4, and his infantry 2 dirhems a day, which was considered very good pay. Al-Mamun paid his cavalry 100 dirhems and his infantry 40 per month (Kremer).

Honain. According to Barhebræus, Mesuë lost his temper at Honain's perpetual questioning, and exclaimed: “What have you to do with medicine! People like you ought to buy rags in the street." Then Honain went out weeping, and departed into the land of the Romans, and stayed there till he had learnt Greek. Hammer gives the following account of their reconciliation, on the authority of the Caliph's astrologer. "Honain brought me one day a translation of the Aphorisms of Hippocrates and asked me to show it to John Mesuë without mentioning his name. When Mesuë read it he was filled with astonishment, and declared that it must have been written by inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 'Not at all,' said I, 'it is by the pupil whom you drove away some time since.' Then he begged me to reconcile him to Honain, which I did, and they lived in great harmony together so long as I stayed at Bagdad."

Barhebræus gives a somewhat different version of the image story; that in the text is from Le Clerc, who attributes it to Honain himself.

XXIX.-ARABIC MEDICINE. (2) THE EASTERN CALIPHATE.

SINAN BEN TSABET (died 942), whose biography has been written by his son, Tsabet ben Sinan, forms a convenient link between the Christian and Moslem representatives of Arabic medicine. He was born a Christian, but his father, having been twice excommunicated for heresy, was perhaps imperfectly grounded in the faith, and he yielded, after some resistance, to the threats or arguments of the Caliph Kaher. His fame as a physician was so great that, on the occasion of an epidemic, the Vizier, Ali ben Issa, appointed him chief of a commission for providing medical aid in the towns and

villages round Bagdad. We still possess the letter of instruction in which that liberal-minded statesman declares that not even Jews are to be refused admission to the hospitals. Nay, the physician should also tend sick animals, always observing the order, "first believers, then infidels; first men, and then animals". But Sinan's chief claim to remembrance lies in the fact that he conducted the earliest known medical examination for a licence to practise. In the year 931 a patient died through the fault of his physician, and all the practitioners in and around Bagdad, except those attached to the palace or celebrated for their skill, were ordered to present themselves to Ben Tsabet for examination. Among the 860 who appeared was an old man, welldressed, and of an intellectual countenance. Unwilling to question so venerable a candidate, Sinan suggested that he should favour him with a brief medical discourse. Then the old man pulled a purse of gold from his sleeve and laid it before the astonished examiner. He knew nothing, he said, of medical theories, but had long supported his family by the practice of the art, and hoped to be allowed to continue doing so. Sinan smiled, and promised him his licence on condition that he only undertook cases he perfectly understood, and never employed bleeding or purgatives, unless obviously called for. The candidate replied that such had been his invariable practice, and that he never gave other medicines than oxymel and juleps.

Among those exempted from this examination may have been a blind physician, who died full of years and honour shortly afterwards. This was Abu Bekr Mohammed ben Zechariah, called Rhazes from his birth-place, Rai, the first and most original of the great Moslem physicians (850-932). In his youth he had devoted himself to music, but wishing for some more useful occupation, embraced the profession of medicine, and practised it with a liberality to his poorer patients which, in spite of his fame, kept him in comparative poverty, and with a boldness and originality which gained him the title of "the Experimentator".

ΙΟ

He is probably best known as the author of the oldest existing treatise on small-pox and measles, but this work is readily accessible in Dr. Greenhill's translation, and our space may be better occupied with other subjects. Rhazes is the most independent and therefore the most interesting of the Arabic writers on medicine. Here are a few cases from the third book of his Aphorisms which tend to justify the title above mentioned. "A young fellow who was with me at Jerusalem complained of palpitation, melancholy, and causeless fears. After trying many things, I told him to eat hawk's flesh flavoured with marjoram and cloves, to drink white wine instead of water, and to inhale aromatic odours. Thereby he acquired fortitude and audacity, and so I cured him." "A man travelling on a hot day fell into an acute fever; his face was red, his breath hot like fire, and his heart beat violently. I waited an hour or two expecting to see some flow of blood, but nothing happened; so I ordered his nose to be rubbed vigorously. Still there was no bleeding, and the fever and pain increased. Then I gave him ten pounds of cold water to drink, and this was soon followed by copious diuresis and decrease of the fever. But his servant, who got no water because all were busy with his master, died before evening." These, and other cases given by Rhazes and Avenzoar, form the nearest approach to clinical histories to be found from the time of Galen to the "consilia " of the fourteenth century.

Rhazes' greatest work is the Hawi or Continens, which exceeds in bulk the Canon of Avicenna, and is written in the typical Arab style, each section beginning with a long list of authorities, "A said," "B said," "C found," etc., and sometimes ending with a modest "I say," or “I have found".

The following are quotations from this work, which in 1395 formed the most valuable of the nine volumes composing the whole library of the medical faculty of Paris. "Ben Mesuë said: 'Let persons troubled with asthma or shortness of breath take two drachms of dried and powdered fox lung