of affairs existent in Spain when they came.
There is no doubt that they raised standards of education and of culture
above the level to which they had sunk under the weight of the invading
barbarians from the North, and Spain owes much to the wise ruling and
devotion to the intellectual life of her Moorish invaders. All the
factors, however, must be taken together in order to appreciate properly
the conditions which developed under the Arabs in both the East and the
West. The Arabs invented little that was new in science or philosophy;
they merely carried on older traditions. It is for that that the modern
time owes them a great debt of gratitude.

RHAZES

The most distinguished of the Arabian physicians was the man whose
rather lengthy Arabian name, beginning with Abu Bekr Mohammed, finished
with el-Razi, and who has hence been usually referred to in the history
of medicine as Rhazes. He was born about 850 at Raj, in the Province of
Chorasan in Persia. He seems to have had a liberal early education in
philosophy and in philology and literature. He did not take up medicine
until later in life, and, according to tradition, supported himself as a
singer until he was thirty years of age. Then he devoted himself to
medical studies with the ardor and the success so often noted in those
whose opportunity to study medicine has been delayed. His studies were
made at Bagdad, where Ibn Zein el-Taberi was his teacher. He returned to
his native town and was for some time the head of the hospital there.
Later he was called by the Sultan to Bagdad to take charge of the
renovated and enlarged hospital of the capital. His medical career,
then, is not unlike that of many another successful physician,
especially of the modern time. At Bagdad he had abundant opportunities
for study, and the ambition to make medicine as well as to make money
and gain fame.

His studies in science were all founded on Aristotle. Though he was
called the Galen of his time, and looked up to the Greek physician as
his master, even the authority of Galen did not override that of the
Stagirite in his estimation. One of his aphorisms is said to have been,
"If Galen and Aristotle are of one mind on a subject, then surely their
opinion is true. When they differ, however, it is extremely difficult
for the scholar to decide which opinion should be accepted." He drew
many pupils to Bagdad, and, when one knows his teaching, this is not
surprising. Some of his apho