hs in
western Europe were paying little attention to science or education,
the caliphs and vizirs were encouraging physicians and philosophers,
building schools, and erecting libraries and hospitals. They made at
least a creditable effort to uphold and advance upon the scientific
standards of an earlier age.

The first distinguished Arabian physician was Harets ben Kaladah, who
received his education in the Nestonian school at Gondisapor, about the
beginning of the seventh century. Notwithstanding the fact that Harets
was a Christian, he was chosen by Mohammed as his chief medical adviser,
and recommended as such to his successor, the Caliph Abu Bekr. Thus,
at the very outset, the science of medicine was divorced from religion
among the Arabians; for if the prophet himself could employ the services
of an unbeliever, surely others might follow his example. And that this
example was followed is shown in the fact that many Christian physicians
were raised to honorable positions by succeeding generations of
Arabian monarchs. This broad-minded view of medicine taken by the Arabs
undoubtedly assisted as much as any one single factor in upbuilding
the science, just as the narrow and superstitious view taken by Western
nations helped to destroy it.

The education of the Arabians made it natural for them to associate
medicine with the natural sciences, rather than with religion. An
Arabian savant was supposed to be equally well educated in philosophy,
jurisprudence, theology, mathematics, and medicine, and to practise law,
theology, and medicine with equal skill upon occasion. It is easy to
understand, therefore, why these religious fanatics were willing to
employ unbelieving physicians, and their physicians themselves to
turn to the scientific works of Hippocrates and Galen for medical
instruction, rather than to religious works. Even Mohammed himself
professed some knowledge of medicine, and often relied upon this
knowledge in treating ailments rather than upon prayers or incantations.
He is said, for example, to have recommended and applied the cautery
in the case of a friend who, when suffering from angina, had sought his
aid.

The list of eminent Arabian physicians is too long to be given here,
but some of them are of such importance in their influence upon later
medicine that they cannot be entirely ignored. One of the first of these
was Honain ben Isaac (809-873 A.D.), a Christian Arab of Bagdad. He made
translations