0"T' LAERT> "! - USP

Ifjo THE MIDDLE AGES.
learned men translated the Medicine of GALEN and after- '
wards all the works of ARISTOTLE."
From the Byzantine emperors AL MAMUN obtained a#
number of Greek manuscripts, the learned PHOTIUS who (
lived for a long time at the court of Baghdad transmitting
them to him. Moreover Indian works—such as the*'
treatise on poisons by CHANAK and the Ayur-Veda ofVj
SUSRUTA and CHARAKA—were translated and, as it appears,
first into Persian and then into Arabic. The Indian doctor's
who, like MANKAH, SALEH BEN" BALEH and others, had
settled in Baghdad, rendered in this way important services,.*
Thus too certain literary productions of 4 the Chaldees found;
their way to the Arabs.
This establishment for translating continued to'exist !
under the successors of AL MAMUN ; among the men, of
learning who were* appointed to it", HONEIN (JOHANNITIUS) j
who translated the most important Greek authors, made •.,
himself especially remarkable.
On these foundations an independent medical .literature '
gradually developed. The commencement of it reaches '
back into the ninth "century; but only in the eleventh* did it
attain its prime. The progress of Arabian culture: was
favourably influenced in an extraordinary degree by the
disintegration of the empire,into numerous independent,
states. The princely residences of the Samanides. at
Bokhara, of the Ghasnawides at Ghasna, of the Buides'in
Persia, of the Hamadanites in Mesopotamia and Syria, of**
the Edrisites in Magreb, of. the Aglabites in Kairwan and t
of the Fathimites in Egypt forined so many centres for,
artistic and scientific efforts, like points of crystallization in*
a saturated liquid. They found the most effectiveprotec-;
tion however among the Ommiades. in Spain, who obtained
dominion there after being driven from their home about
the middle of the eighth century. ABDERRAHMAN, the
* At the time of MUHAMMED there existed at Senaa in Southern Arabia a
famous medical school, the Principal of -which, HARIT BEN KALDAH, had
acquired his knowledge in India as LASSEN (Indische Alterlh. ii, 519) narrates^