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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![of men, to wit Secretaries of State, Poets, Astrologers and Physicians, deemed by the author, Nizami-i-‘Arudi of Samarqand, indispensable for the service of kings. After enumerating a number of books which should be diligently studied by him who aspires to eminence in Medicine, the author says that if he desires to be in¬ dependent of all other works he may rest satisfied with the Qdnun, and thus continues1: “ The Lord of the two Worlds and Guide of the two Material Races saith: ‘ Every kind of game is com¬ prehended in the Wild Ass.’ All this, together with much more, is to be found in the Qdnun, and from him who hath mastered the first volume thereof nothing will be hidden concerning the general theory and principles of Medicine, so that could Hippocrates and Galen return to life, it would be proper that they should do reverence to this book. Yet have I heard a wonderful thing, to wit that one hath taken exception to Abu ‘Ah' [Avicenna] in respect to this work, and hath embodied his criticisms in a book which he hath entitled the Rectification of the Qdnun. It is as though I looked upon both, and saw how foolish is the author and how detestable his work. For what right hath anyone to find fault with so great a man, when the very first question he meets with in a book of his which he comes across is difficult to his comprehension ? For four thousand years the physicians of antiquity travailed in spirit and spent their very souls in order to reduce the science of 1 The passage cited occurs on pp. 70-71 of the text of the Chahar Maqdla published in 1910 in the “E. J. W. Gibb Memorial” Series, vol. xi, and on pp. iio-m of the separate reprint of the translation which I published in 1899 in t^ie Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. In my new revised translation, which will appear shortly as vol. xi, 2 of the Gibb Series, it will be found on pp. 79-80.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b29823717_0079.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
