he Middle Ages.
The whole story of Geber is discussed by Berthelot in his "La chimie
au moyen age" (Paris, 1896). The transmission of Arabian science to
the Occident began with the Crusades, though earlier a filtering of
important knowledge in mathematics and astronomy had reached Southern
and Middle Europe through Spain. Among the translators several names
stand out prominently. Gerbert, who became later Pope Sylvester II, is
said to have given us our present Arabic figures. You may read the story
of his remarkable life in Taylor,(17) who says he was "the first mind
of his time, its greatest teacher, its most eager learner, and most
universal scholar." But he does not seem to have done much directly for
medicine.

(17) The Mediaeval Mind, Vol. I, p. 280.

The Graeco-Arabic learning passed into Europe through two sources. As
I have already mentioned, Constantinus Africanus, a North African
Christian monk, widely travelled and learned in languages, came to
Salernum and translated many works from Arabic into Latin, particularly
those of Hippocrates and Galen. The "Pantegni" of the latter became one
of the most popular text-books of the Middle Ages. A long list of other
works which he translated is given by Steinschneider.(17a) It is not
unlikely that Arabic medicine had already found its way to Salernum
before the time of Constantine, but the influence of his translations
upon the later Middle Ages was very great.

(17a) Steinschneider: Virchow's Arch., Berl., 1867, xxxvii, 351.

The second was a more important source through the Latin translators
in Spain, particularly in Toledo, where, from the middle of the twelfth
till the middle of the thirteenth century, an extraordinary number of
Arabic works in philosophy, mathematics and astronomy were translated.
Among the translators, Gerard of Cremona is prominent, and has been
called the "Father of Translators." He was one of the brightest
intelligences of the Middle Ages, and did a work of the first importance
to science, through the extraordinary variety of material he put in
circulation. Translations, not only of the medical writers, but of an
indiscriminate crowd of authors in philosophy and general literature,
came from his pen. He furnished one of the first translations of
the famous "Almagest" of Ptolemy, which opened the eyes of his
contemporaries to the value of the Alexandrian astronomy.(18) Leclerc
gives a list of seventy-one works from his hand.