[12] Withington: Medical History, London, 1894, pp. 151-152.
[13] Neuburger: History of Medicine, Vol. I, pp. 368-369.
Innumerable manuscripts of it exist: of one of the most beautiful, a Hebrew version (Bologna Library), I give an illustration. A Latin version was printed in 1472 and there are many later editions, the last in 1663. Avicenna was not only a successful writer, but the prototype of the successful physician who was at the same time statesman, teacher, philosopher and literary man. Rumor has it that he became dissipated, and a contemporary saying was that all his philosophy could not make him moral, nor all his physic teach him to preserve his health.
He enjoyed a great reputation as a poet. I reproduce a page of a manuscript of one of his poems, which we have in the Bodleian Library. Prof. A.V.W. Jackson says that some of his verse is peculiarly Khayyamesque, though he antedated Omar by a century.
That "large Infidel" might well have written such a stanza as From Earth's dark centre unto Saturn's Gate I've solved all problems of this world's Estate, From every snare of Plot and Guile set free, Each bond resolved, saving alone Death's Fate.
His hymn to the Deity might have been written by Plato and rivals the famous one of Cleanthes.[14] A casual reader gets a very favorable impression of Avicenna. The story of his dominion over the schools in the Middle Ages is one of the most striking in our history. Perhaps we feel that Leclerc exaggerates when he says:
"Avicenna is an intellectual phenomenon. Never perhaps has an example been seen of so precocious, quick and wide an intellect extending and asserting itself with so strange and indefatigable an activity." The touch of the man never reached me until I read some of his mystical and philosophical writings translated by Mehren.[15] It is Plato over again. The beautiful allegory in which men are likened to birds snared and caged until set free by the Angel of Death might be met with anywhere in the immortal Dialogues. The tractate on Love is a commentary on the Symposium; and the essay on Destiny is Greek in spirit without a trace of Oriental fatalism, as you may judge from the concluding sentence, which I leave you as his special message: "Take heed to the limits of your capacity and you will arrive at a knowledge of the truth! How true is the saying:--Work ever and to each will come that measure of success for which Nature has designed him."
Avicenna died in his fifty-eighth year. When he saw that physic was of no avail, resigning himself to the inevitable, he sold his goods, distributed the money to the poor, read the Koran through once every three days, and died in the holy month of Ramadan.
His tomb at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, still exists, a simple brickwork building, rectangular in shape, and surrounded by an unpretentious court. It was restored in 1877, but is again in need of repair. The illustration here shown is from a photograph sent by Dr. Neligan of Teheran. Though dead, the great Persian has still a large practice, as his tomb is much visited by pilgrims, among whom cures are said to be not uncommon.
[14] "L'hymne d'Avicenne" in: L'Elegie du Tograi, etc., par P.
Vattier, Paris, 1660.
[15] Traites mystiques d'Abou Ali al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sina ou d'Avicenne par M. A. F. Mehren, Leyden, E. J. Brill, Fasc.
I-IV, 1889-1899.
The Western Caliphate produced physicians and philosophers almost as brilliant as those of the East. Remarkable schools of medicine were founded at Seville, Toledo and Cordova. The most famous of the professors were Averroes, Albucasis and Avenzoar.
Albucasis was "the Arabian restorer of surgery." Averroes, called in the Middle Ages "the Soul of Aristotle" or "the Commentator," is better known today among philosophers than physicians. On the revival of Moslem orthodoxy he fell upon evil days, was persecuted as a free-thinker, and the saying is attributed to him--"Sit anima mea cum philosophic."
Arabian medicine had certain very definite characteristics: the basis was Greek, derived from translations of the works of Hippocrates and Galen. No contributions were made to anatomy, as dissections were prohibited, nor to physiology, and the pathology was practically that of Galen. Certain new and important diseases were described; a number of new and active remedies were introduced, chiefly from the vegetable kingdom. The Arabian hospitals were well organized and were deservedly famous. No such hospital exists today in Cairo as that which was built by al-Mansur Gilafun in 1283. The description of it by Makrizi, quoted by Neuburger,[16] reads like that of a twentieth century institution with hospital units.
