The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
History
The growth of medicine from the earliest times to about 1800
Buck, Albert H. (Albert Henry)
Medicine -- History
Hobeïch translated the “Oath of Hippocrates” and a large number of the
more important of Galen’s treatises. In addition, he left to posterity
several original writings. Quotations from these are to be found in the
works of Rhazes, of Ebn el Beithar, and of Serapion the Younger, and
they reveal two important facts: first, that Hobeïch was an excellent
practicing physician; and, second, that the Arabs had already at this
comparatively early date begun to gather their medical information
from other sources than the Greek treatises. The following drugs, for
example, are described by Hobeïch in the quotations just mentioned, and
yet they do not appear to have been known to the Greek medical writers:
Turbith, Convolvulus of the Nile, Nux Vomica, Colocynth, Croton
Tiglium, Aloes and Myrobolans.
Costa, the son of Luca, was a Christian Greek from Baalbek, in Syria.
The dates of his birth and death are not known, but it is believed that
he lived during the first half of the tenth century of the present era.
He was an excellent Greek and Arabic scholar and was also familiar with
the Syriac language. His translations were esteemed equal to those
of Honein. After spending some time in Greece he settled in Irak, a
province of Persia, and devoted himself to the translation of the books
which he had brought with him from Greece. At a later period of his
life he removed to Armenia, a country which lies to the north of Irak,
between it and the Black Sea, and it was during his residence there
that he wrote a number of treatises. It was in Armenia, also, so far as
may be judged from the accounts which we possess, that his death took
place. As an evidence of the fact that he was highly esteemed by his
contemporaries, his biographer states that a cupola was built over his
tomb.
Among the medical works which he translated from the Greek the
following are the only ones of special importance: The Aphorisms of
Hippocrates, and Galen’s commentaries upon them.
The ninth century, the period during which the major portion of the
work described in the preceding part of this chapter was accomplished,
is considered by Lucien Le Clerc the most remarkable in the worlds
history. He speaks of it in the following terms:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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