The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913Osler, William, Sir
History
The Evolution of Modern Medicine: A Series of Lectures Delivered at Yale University on the Silliman Foundation in April, 1913
Osler, William, Sir
Medicine -- History
Leclerc gives the names of more than one hundred known translators who
not only dealt with the physicians but with the Greek philosophers,
mathematicians and astronomers. The writings of the physicians of India
and of Persia were also translated into Arabic.
But close upon the crowd of translators who introduced the learning of
Greece to the Arabians came original observers of the first rank, to a
few only of whom time will allow me to refer. Rhazes, so called from the
name of the town (Rai) in which he was born, was educated at the great
hospital at Bagdad in the second half of the ninth century. With a true
Hippocratic spirit he made many careful observations on disease, and
to him we owe the first accurate account of smallpox, which he
differentiated from measles. This work was translated for the old
Sydenham Society by W.A. Greenhill (1848), and the description given
of the disease is well worth reading. He was a man of strong powers
of observation, good sense and excellent judgment. His works were very
popular, particularly the gigantic "Continens," one of the bulkiest of
incunabula. The Brescia edition, 1486, a magnificent volume, extends
over 588 pages and it must weigh more than seventeen pounds. It is an
encyclopaedia filled with extracts from the Greek and other writers,
interspersed with memoranda of his own experiences. His "Almansor" was
a very popular text-book, and one of the first to be printed. Book IX
of "Almansor" (the name of the prince to whom it was addressed) with the
title "De aegritudinibus a capite usque ad pedes," was a very favorite
mediaeval text-book. On account of his zeal for study Rhazes was known
as the "Experimentator."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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