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166 THE MIDDLE AGES.
the amputation ABULKASEM arrested by styptics and
cauteries ; in describing the operation he says not a single
word about tying the vessels. In another passage he
narrates that he made a resection of part of the bone in a
case of necrosis of the tibia*
Tracheotomy was no longer practised in his time. He
only knew it from the descriptions of the ancients, but
considered it indicated in cases in which the danger of
suffocation was imminent by reason of new growths.t
AVENZOAR performed the operation on a goat, as he
informs us, with the object of observing the result.J
Lithotomy was described by ABULKASEM who in the same
place alludes to lithotrity.^ MOSES MAIMONIDES improved
the method of circumcision, which custom was in use among
the Arabs, and introduced several precautionary measures
to be observed in this operation. || In the treatment of
fractures and dislocations which ABULKASEM considered in
his third book, the approved principles of the doctors of
antiquity were pursued.! It only deserves mention that
AviCENNA recommended the reduction of the dislocated
humerus by direct pressure, i.e. direct reposition.**
Cataract was removed by depression of the lens into the
vitreous.tf Extraction was considered, if not impossible, at
least very dangerous.H ABULKASEM alludes, as RHAZES
did before him, to the curing of cataract by suction and
remarks that this procedure was practised in Persia.§§ So
* Id. op. cit. ii, 88, p. 216.
f Id. op. cit. ii, 43, p. 120.
X AVENZOAR -. Altheisir., Lib. i, Tr. x, c. 14, Venet. 1542.
§ ABULKASEM ii, 60 op. cit. p. 151 et seq.
|| J. B. FRIEDREICH : Zur Bibel, Niirnberg 1848, ii, S. 46 et seq.—H. PLOSS:
Geschichtliches und Ethnologisches iiber Knabenbeschneidung im Deutschen
Arch. f. Gesch. d. Med. Leipzig 1885, viii, S. 324 et seq.
^f ABULKASEM iii, op. cit. p. 270-342.
** AVICENNA : Canon iv, fen. 5, tract. 1, c. 11, 14.
tt ABULKASEM ii, 23 op. cit. p. 92 et seq.
XX AVENZOAR: Altheisir., Lib. i, tract. 8, c. 19.—AVICENNA op. cit. iii, 3,
tract. 4, c. 20.
§§ ABULKASEM ii, 23 op. cit. p. 93.