medici Graeci
minores" (Berlin, 1841).

(9) It has been reproduced by Seatone de Vries, Leyden, 1905,
Codices graeci et latini photographice depicti, Vol. X.

The Byzantine stream of Greek medicine had dwindled to a very tiny rill
when the fall of Constantinople (1453) dispersed to the West many Greek
scholars and many precious manuscripts.

ARABIAN MEDICINE

THE third and by far the strongest branch of the Greek river reached the
West after a remarkable and meandering course. The map before you shows
the distribution of the Graeco-Roman Christian world at the beginning of
the seventh century. You will notice that Christianity had extended
far eastwards, almost to China. Most of those eastern Christians were
Nestorians and one of their important centres was Edessa, whose school
of learning became so celebrated. Here in the fifth century was built
one of the most celebrated hospitals of antiquity.

Now look at another map showing the same countries about a century
later. No such phenomenal change ever was made within so short space
of time as that which thus altered the map of Asia and Europe at this
period. Within a century, the Crescent had swept from Arabia through the
Eastern Empire, over Egypt, North Africa and over Spain in the West, and
the fate of Western Europe hung in the balance before the gates of Tours
in 732. This time the barbaric horde that laid waste a large part of
Christendom were a people that became deeply appreciative of all that
was best in Graeco-Roman civilization and of nothing more than of its
sciences. The cultivation of medicine was encouraged by the Arabs in a
very special way. Anyone wishing to follow the history of the medical
profession among this remarkable people will find it admirably presented
in Lucien Leclerc's "Histoire de la medecine arabe" (Paris, 1876).
An excellent account is also given in Freind's well-known "History of
Medicine" (London, 1725-1726). Here I can only indicate very briefly the
course of the stream and its freightage.

With the rise of Christianity, Alexandria became a centre of bitter
theological and political factions, the story of which haunts the
memory of anyone who was so fortunate as to read in his youth Kingsley's
"Hypatia." These centuries, with their potent influence of neoplatonism
on Christianity, appear to have been sterile enough in medicine. I have
already referred to the late Greeks, Aetius and Alexander of Tralles.
The las