An address delivered to the graduates admitted at the Convocation of the Senate of the University of Madras, held on Monday, April 5, 1878 / by M.C. Furnell.

  • Furnell, Michael Cudmore, 1829-1888.
Date:
1878
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An address delivered to the graduates admitted at the Convocation of the Senate of the University of Madras, held on Monday, April 5, 1878 / by M.C. Furnell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Not only did the Greeks derive much informa- tion direct, during Alexander and his succes- sor’s invasion of India, but from the Egyptians subsequently, and they owed their knowledge to some mysterious nation of the East, India no doubt. But our indebtedness to India can be more directly traced somewhat later. When Bagdad, under the Caliphs after the destruction of Alexandria, became the great seat of learning, medicine was cultivated with much diligence and success. Hindoo Physi- cians were invited to settle in Arabia, and the works of Charaka, Sasruta and the treatise called Nidana were translated and studied by the Arabians in the days of Harun and Mansur, A. D. 773. With the great wave of Mussulman conquest which spread along the shores of the Mediterranean, Medicine and Mathematics were brought by the Arabians to Spain and found a congenial home in the Saracenic Colleges of the Iberian Peninsula. The Arabians were not only great Physicians, but famous alche- mists, and to their teachings we owe the foundations of those sciences which have now grown to the fair dimensions of Modern Medicine and Chemistry.’^ They seem, however, to have neglected anatomy, and were more particularly famous for the introduc- * It has been said, “Whilst the Byzantines obliterated science in TheO' logy, the Saracens illuminated it by medicine.” (Draper.)
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