cco.
Abu Othman wrote on zoology; Alberuni, on gems--he had travelled to
India to procure information; Rhazes, Al Abbas, and Al Beithar, on
botany--the latter had been in all parts of the world for the purpose of
obtaining specimens. Ebn Zoar, better known as Avenzoar, may be looked
upon as the authority in Moorish pharmacy. Pharmacopoeias were published
by the schools, improvements on the old ones of the Nestorians: to them
may be traced the introduction of many Arabic words, such as syrup,
julep, elixir, still used among apothecaries. [Sidenote: Relics of the
Arab vocabulary.] A competent scholar might furnish not only an
interesting, but valuable book, founded on the remaining relics of the
Arab vocabulary; for, in whatever direction we may look, we meet, in the
various pursuits of peace and war, of letters and of science, Saracenic
vestiges. Our dictionaries tell us that such is the origin of admiral,
alchemy, alcohol, algebra, chemise, cotton, and hundreds of other words.
The Saracens commenced the application of chemistry, both to the theory
and practice of medicine, in the explanation of the functions of the
human body and in the cure of its diseases. [Sidenote: Their medicine
and surgery.] Nor was their surgery behind their medicine. Albucasis, of
Cordova, shrinks not from the performance of the most formidable
operations in his own and in the obstetrical art; the actual cautery and
the knife are used without hesitation. He has left us ample descriptions
of the surgical instruments then employed; and from him we learn that,
in operations on females in which considerations of delicacy intervened,
the services of properly instructed women were secured. How different
was all this from the state of things in Europe; the Christian peasant,
fever-stricken or overtaken by accident, hied to the nearest
saint-shrine and expected a miracle; the Spanish Moor relied on the
prescription or lancet of his physician, or the bandage and knife of his
surgeon.

[Sidenote: Liberality of the Asiatic khalifs.] In mathematics the
Arabians acknowledged their indebtedness to two sources, Greek and
Indian, but they greatly improved upon both. The Asiatic khalifs had
made exertions to procure translations of Euclid, Apollonius,
Archimedes, and other Greek geometers. Almaimon, in a letter to the
Emperor Theophilus, expressed his desire to visit Constantinople if his
public duties would have permitted. He requests of him to allow Leo the
m