The most important of the Arabian surgeons of the Middle Ages is Albucasis or Abulcasis, also Abulkasim, who was born near Cordova, in Spain. The exact year of his birth is not known, but he flourished in the second half of the tenth century. He is said to have lived to the age of 101. The name of his principal work, which embraces the whole of medicine, is "Altasrif," or "Tesrif," which has been translated "The Miscellany." Most of what he has to say about medical matters is taken from Rhazes. His work on surgery, however, in three books, represents his special contribution to the medical sciences. It contains a number of illustrations of instruments, and is the first illustrated medical book that has come to us. It was translated into Latin, and was studied very faithfully by all the surgeons of the Middle Ages. Guy de Chauliac has quoted Albucasis about two hundred times in his "Chirurgia Magna." Even as late as the beginning of the sixteenth century Fabricius de Acquapendente, the teacher of Harvey, confessed that he owed most to three great medical writers, Celsus (first century), Paul of AEgina (seventh century), and Abulcasis (tenth century). Abulcasis insisted that for successful surgery a detailed knowledge of anatomy was, above all, necessary. He said that the reason why surgery had declined in his day was that physicians did not know their anatomy. The art of medicine, he added further, required much time. Unfortunately, to quote Hippocrates, there are many who are physicians in name only, and not in fact, especially in what regards surgery. He gives some examples of surgical mistakes made by his professional brethren that were particularly called to his attention. They are the perennially familiar instances of ignorance causing death because surgeons were tempted to operate too extensively.