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
protest against evil practices which had crept into the Christian
church. And medicine, as I have already stated, felt the influence
of the approaching Renaissance, and responded to it by efforts which
had for their object the acquisition of such knowledge as might be
furnished by translations from Arabic treatises. Constantinus, the
African, of whom mention has been made on a previous page, seems to
have been the first person (toward the end of the eleventh century) who
did any work of this kind; but his associates in Salerno do not appear
to have valued these translations very highly, or else, perhaps, they
were not yet prepared to give serious consideration to works which were
new to them. In the twelfth century, as will now be seen, the attitude
of the physicians of Western Europe underwent a change.
The city of Toledo, in Spain, was richly stocked with the manuscript
treasures of Arabic literature at the time (1085 A. D.) when it fell
into the hands of the Christians. One of the earliest scholars to
engage in the work of translating these treasures into Latin was
Gerard of Cremona, in Lombardy, who lived during the twelfth century
(1114–1187 A. D.). He spent most of his lifetime in Toledo, “learning
and teaching, reading and translating.” (Neuburger.) Among the medical
works which he translated from the Arabic the most important are the
following: Several of the writings of Hippocrates and Galen; the
Breviarium of Serapion; several of the writings of Rhazes and of Isaac
Judaeus; the treatise on surgery by Abulcasis; the Canon of Avicenna,
etc. This stimulated many others to follow in the footsteps of Gerard
of Cremona; and thus, during the thirteenth century, a number of works
of importance were translated in addition to those already mentioned.
Such, for example, were the “Colliget” of Averroes by Bonacosa, a Jew
(1255) of Padua; the “_Teïssir_” of Avenzoar, and the “Dietetics”
of Maimonides by John of Capua, a Jewish convert to Christianity
(1262–1278); the “_De veribus cordis_” of Avicenna by Arnaldus
of Villanova (about 1282); the treatise “_De simplicibus_” of
Serapion the Younger, and the “_Liber servitoris_” of Abulcasis,
by Simon Januensis; and many others. This wave of keen interest in
the writings of Arabic physicians and in the Arabic versions of Greek
medical authors soon reached Languedoc in France, and then passed over
from there into Italy. For a long time the Salerno physicians resisted
its influence, but they finally yielded to it, as the leaders in the
schools of Bologna, Naples, Montpellier and Paris had already done.
It was at Palermo, in Sicily, however, that the movement received its
greatest impetus. Frederick II., at that time King of Sicily, and a
ruler who was most tolerant in religious matters, had at his Court an
entire staff of Arabic physicians, philosophers, astrologers and poets;
and, in addition, he kept a number of learned Christians and Jews
constantly busy translating Arabic works into Latin.
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