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iy2 THE MIDDLE AGES.
MACRIZI* there were, even in the pre-Islamite time,
hospitals in Egypt, provided with doctors and drugs.
Amongst the Muhammedans the mosques and" the buildings
belonging to them frequently served as shelters for poor
strangers and as hospitals for the sick. Under the rule of
Islam the first hospital for the sick was erected in the year
707 by the Caliph EL WELID BEN ABD-EL-MALIK who took
care that travellers without means if they fell ill should
receive medical assistance. " He appointed doctors to the
\ hospitals and defrayed their expenses : he commanded
"-* that lepers should be shut up so that they should not go
%' into the streets, and provided for their wants and also for
those of blind people."
- • . ' At a later period hospitals and infirmaries were erected
in all.the larger towns, owing their foundation to pious
legacies. The majority of them served also for medical
teaching. The arrangements existing in the medical school
at Gondisapur and in the medical teaching establishments
connected with the hospitals of the Nestorians were taken
for a pattern. The hospital doctors worked here as teachers
of medicine, and gave their pupils instruction in the various
branches of medical science. The information which has
reached us concerning the hospitals of the Arabs gives us
some insight into their condition and circumstances. The
hospital at Gondisapur, which for many generations was under
the direction of members of the BACHTISCHUA (BOCHTJESU)
family, maintained its good reputation under the Arab
dominion. It was connected with a well-managed dispen-
•, s'ary over which the elder MESUE, the founder of another
famous medical family, presided for more than 40 years. In
the year 869 SABUR BEN SAHL, who rendered great services
to materia medica, was the director of this establishment. It
probably continued to exist down to a later period, passing,
however, into the shade as the splendid, endowed hospitals
* MACBIZI'S Description of hospitals in Cairo according to WUSTENFELD'S,
translation in the Janus, Breslau 1846, i, S. 28 et seq.