Arabian medicine : being the Fitzpatrick lectures delivered at the College of physicians in November 1919 and November 1920 / by Edward G. Browne.
- Edward Granville Browne
- Date:
- 1921
Licence: In copyright
Credit: Arabian medicine : being the Fitzpatrick lectures delivered at the College of physicians in November 1919 and November 1920 / by Edward G. Browne. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![Asad ibn Jam, who, even in a year of pestilence, and in spite of his recognized learning, skill and diligence, had but few patients. Being asked the reason of this by one of his acquaintances he replied: “In the first place I am a Muslim, and before I studied medicine, nay, before ever I was created, the people held the view that Muslims are not successful physicians. Further my name is Asad, and it should have been Saliba, Mara’il, Yuhanna or Bira [i.e. a Syriac or Aramaic name]; and my kunya is Abu’l-Harith, and it should have been Abii ‘Isa, Abu Zakariyya or Abii Ibrahim [i.e. Christian or Jewish instead of Muhammadan]; and I wear a cloak of white cotton, and it should have been of black silk; and my speech is Arabic, and it should have been the speech of the people of Jundi-Shapur” [in S.W. Persia], The Arabs, whose scepticism was not confined to matters of religion, avenged themselves to some extent by disparaging verses about doctors, such as the following on the death of Yuhanna ibn Masawayhi (the Mesues of the medieval writers) in a.d. 857: £• ^ 0 C- * uj ** y* J 0 J wO F* 1 3 3 j j Ole “ Verily the physician, with his physic and his drugs, Cannot avert a summons that hath come. What ails the physician that he dies of the disease Which he used to cure in time gone by ? There died alike he who administered the drug, and he who took the drug, Arid he who imported and sold the drug, and he who bought it A Similar in purport are the following verses from the popular romance of ‘Antara, the old Bedouin hero :](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29823717_0024.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
