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MEDICAL SCIENCE AMONG THE ARABS. 167
too the ophthalmic surgeon ISA BEN ALI makes mention of
this method of operating; a manuscript of his work gives
on the margin an illustration of the hollow needle used for
this purpose.* CANAMUSALl who frequently performed
this operation, made a preliminary incision in the cornea so
that the hollow needle could be more easily introduced.t
Midwifery was the business of midwives, who rendered
the required help in normal confinements and even
undertook obstetric operations. The strict seclusion of
women agreed to by the custom of society prevented
doctors occupying themselves with practice of this kind.
They had only occasional opportunities J in this respect;
in their writings they concerned themselves chiefly with
advising the midwives what remedies to employ for the
relief of women seeking their aid and with giving them
counsel in the performance of certain operations.§ Among
the instruments specified by ABULKASEM as being used in
the extraction of the dead foetus, we find a dilator, bearing
some resemblance to midwifery forceps ;|| but it is clear, as
MULDER has remarked, that it was never used for the
extraction of a living child.% Another illustration shows
the form of the cephalotribe used for a similar purpose.**
One pleasing symptom is the active interest, which the
Arabian doctors took in the history of their science. The
works of IBN DSCHOLDSCHOL and of IBN ABU OSEIBIAff
form a priceless source of information, though unfor­
tunately one but little used, for the study of the history of
medicine, as indeed also for that of the history of civiliza­
tion in general. The taste for history which was instilled
* SICHEL in the Archiv. f. Ophthalmol. 1868, Bd. xiv, 3, p. 9.
t LECLERC op. cit. i, p. 535.
X C. J. v. SIEBOLD : Geschichte der Geburtshilfe, Berlin 1839, i, S. 272, note.
§ SIEBOLD op cit. i, S. 298 el seq.
|| ABULKASEM ii, 76, 77, op. tit. p. 180 et seq. and Appendix Fig. 103.
% J. MULDER : Geschichte der Zangen u. Hebel in der Geburtshilfe, Leipzig
1798, S. 9.—SIEBOLD op. cit. i, S. 295, Note 1.
** ABULKASEM op. cit. Fig. 106.
tf WUSTENFELD op. cit. S. 132 et seq.—LECLERC op. cit. ii, 187 et seq.