With these facts before us--1st, that Christian physicians were the leaders of the Arabian school in the eighth century; 2nd, that large numbers of Christian churches were actually in existence in India at least two hundred years previously to the establishment of the college at Baghdad; and 3rd, that Baghdad was almost, as it wore, the central point of the great caravan route which from time immemorial had been the course of communication between the East and West, can we doubt that an extensive intercourse must have taken place, and should we not expect to find some traces, if not the effects, of Indian science on the teaching of the Arabian school.[1] [Footnote 1: As to communication, the case of Saggid Mahmud (given in Bellew’s _Indus to the Tigris_), who, merely to pray for the recovery of his sick son, travelled with him from Ghazni by way of Kandahur and Shikarpur to Bombay, thence by way of sea to Baghdad, from there to Karbola, and back to Baghdad; and then by Kirmanshah and Kum to Teheran, on his way home to Ghazni, gives an indication of the long journeys taken under the most frightful difficulties. This long journey had occupied six months only, and we read that in former times twelve years were sometimes taken in trading journeys.] In Vol. VIII. of the Journal of Education we find a notice that “Professor Dietz, of the University of Königsberg, who had spent five years of his life in visiting the principal libraries of Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, France, and England, in search of manuscripts of Greek, Roman, and Oriental writers on medicine, is now engaged in publishing his ‘Analecta Medica.’ “The work contains several interesting papers on the subject of physical science among the Indians and Arabians, and communicates several introductory notices and illustrations from native Eastern writers. Dietz proves that the late Greek physicians were acquainted with the medical works of the Hindus, and availed themselves of their medicaments; but he more particularly shows that the Arabians were familiar with them, and extolled the healing art, as practised by the Indians, quite as much as that in use among the Greeks. “It appears from Ibn Osaibe’s testimony (from whose biographical work Dietz has given a long abstract on the lives of Indian physicians), that a variety of treatises on medical science were translated from the Sanscrit into Persian and Arabic, particularly the more important compilations of Charaka and Susruta, which are still held in estimation in India; and that Manka and Saleh--the former of whom translated a special treatise on poisons into Persian--even held appointments as body-physicians at the Court of Harun-al-Raschid.”