Da’wah, or the system of incantation used by Mohammedans, is employed to cause the cure, or the sickness and death of a person. The Mohammedans have an elaborate system of exorcism, which is fully explained by Mr. Thomas Patrick Hughes.[707] Uroscopy, or the art of judging diseases by inspection of the urine, was a great feature of Arabian as of Greek medical practice. It was, however, with the former usually conducted with jugglery and charlatanism, and there was seldom anything scientific about it. As the religion of the Moslems forbade dissection, the sciences of anatomy and physiology and the art of surgery remained as they were borrowed from the Greek writers. The Arabian faculty always stipulated for their fees beforehand; they disapproved of gratuitous treatment, because, as they declared, “no one gets even thanks for it!” There must have been female doctors, who, in the East, had abundant opportunities for practice, as men were not permitted by the customs of the times to examine women. These female obstetricians performed the gravest operations, such as embryotomy and lithotomy.[708] Hospitals were established at Damascus for lepers, the poor, the blind, and the sick, under the rule of the Caliph Walid. Paper is an Arabic invention. True, it has been made from silk from the remotest ages in China, but by the Arabs it was first made at Samarcand, A.D. 649; and cotton paper, such as we use now, was made at Mecca, A.D. 706. The art was soon afterwards introduced by the Arabs into Spain, where it was brought to the highest perfection.[709] Gunpowder was known to the Arabs a hundred years before Europeans mention it.[710] The compass was used by them nearly two centuries before the Italians and French used it. The number of Arabic inventions which we unsuspectingly enjoy, without being aware of their origin, is prodigious. Could we bring to light the literary treasures of the Escurial, we should know something of the industrious host of Arabians who have done so much for the learning of the Western world, and whose names and deeds have received from us no recognition. Their historical, geographical, and scientific dictionaries and histories would alone entitle them to the gratitude of an age which would know how to appreciate them. Sismondi says that “Medicine and philosophy had even a greater number of historians than the other sciences; and all these different works were embodied in the historical dictionary of sciences compiled by Mohammed-Aba-Abdallah, of Granada.” THE GREAT ARABIAN PHYSICIANS.