the Arabian advances in the field of medicine.


ARABIAN MEDICINE

The influence of Arabian physicians rested chiefly upon their use
of drugs rather than upon anatomical knowledge. Like the
mediaeval Christians, they looked with horror on dissection of
the human body; yet there were always among them investigators
who turned constantly to nature herself for hidden truths, and
were ready to uphold the superiority of actual observation to
mere reading. Thus the physician Abd el-Letif, while in Egypt,
made careful studies of a mound of bones containing more than
twenty thousand skeletons. While examining these bones he
discovered that the lower jaw consists of a single bone, not of
two, as had been taught by Galen. He also discovered several
other important mistakes in Galenic anatomy, and was so impressed
with his discoveries that he contemplated writing a work on
anatomy which should correct the great classical authority's
mistakes.

It was the Arabs who invented the apothecary, and their
pharmacopoeia, issued from the hospital at Gondisapor, and
elaborated from time to time, formed the basis for Western
pharmacopoeias. Just how many drugs originated with them, and how
many were borrowed from the Hindoos, Jews, Syrians, and Persians,
cannot be determined. It is certain, however, that through them
various new and useful drugs, such as senna, aconite, rhubarb,
camphor, and mercury, were handed down through the Middle Ages,
and that they are responsible for the introduction of alcohol in