Moses Maimonides, the most famous Jewish scholar and theologian of the middle ages, must be mentioned among the exponents of Arab pharmacy. He was born at Cordova in 1139, and studied medicine under Averrhoes, but when he was twenty-five the then Mohammedan ruler of Spain required him to be converted or quit the kingdom. Maimonides therefore went to Cairo, and became physician to Saladin, the well-known hero of Crusade wars, who was then Sultan of Egypt. Among his duties he had to superintend the preparation of theriaca and mithridatium for the Court. The drugs for these compounds, Maimonides says, had to be brought from the East and the West at great expenditure of time and money. Consequently, “the illustrious Kadi Fakhil,” (who was apparently one of Saladin’s ministers), “whose days may God prolong, ordered the most humble of his servants in 595 (A.D. 1198) to compose a treatise, small, and showing what ought to be done immediately for a person bitten by a venomous animal.” The treatise which Maimonides composed, in obedience to this order, he called “Fakhiliteh.” This small popular manual reflects in general the pharmacy of Spain and is of no particular interest. The author considers that for all kinds of poisons and venoms the most efficacious antidote is an emerald, laid on the stomach or held in the mouth; and he notes the virtues of theriaca, mithridatium, and of bezoar. But the Kadi was thinking of poor people, and therefore more ordinary remedies were also named. A pigeon killed and cut in two pieces might be applied to painful wounds, but if this was not available warm vinegar with flour and olive oil might be substituted. Vomiting must be excited, and to destroy the virus a mixture of asafœtida, sulphur, salt, onions, mint, orange-pips, and the excrement of pigeons, ducks, or goats, compounded with honey and taken in wine, was recommended. The wisdom of Rhazes, of Avenzoar, and of other great authorities was also drawn from. VII FROM THE ARABS TO THE EUROPEANS “Mediciners, like the medicines which they employ, are often useful, though the one were by birth and manners the vilest of humanity, as the others are in many cases extracted from the basest materials. Men may use the assistance of pagans and infidels in their need, and there is reason to think that one cause of their being permitted to remain on earth is that they might minister to the convenience of true Christians.”--The Archbishop of Tyre in Sir Walter Scott’s _Talisman_.