t of the Alexandrians was a remarkable man, Paul of AEgina, a
great name in medicine and in surgery, who lived in the early part of
the seventh century. He also, like Oribasius, was a great compiler. In
the year 640, the Arabs took Alexandria, and for the third time a great
library was destroyed in the "first city of the West." Shortly after
the conquest of Egypt, Greek works were translated into Arabic, often
through the medium of Syriac, particularly certain of Galen's books
on medicine, and chemical writings, which appear to have laid the
foundation of Arabian knowledge on this subject.

Through Alexandria then was one source: but the special development of
the Greek science and of medicine took place in the ninth century under
the Eastern Caliphates. Let me quote here a couple of sentences from
Leclerc (Tome I, pp. 91-92):

"The world has but once witnessed so marvellous a spectacle as that
presented by the Arabs in the ninth century. This pastoral people, whose
fanaticism had suddenly made them masters of half of the world, having
once founded their empire, immediately set themselves to acquire that
knowledge of the sciences which alone was lacking to their greatness. Of
all the invaders who competed for the last remains of the Roman Empire
they alone pursued such studies; while the Germanic hordes, glorying
in their brutality and ignorance, took a thousand years to re-unite the
broken chain of tradition, the Arabs accomplished this in less than a
century. They provoked the competition of the conquered Christians--a
healthy competition which secured the harmony of the races.

"At the end of the eighth century, their whole scientific possessions
consisted of a translation of one medical treatise and some books on
alchemy. Before the ninth century had run to its close, the Arabs were
in possession of all the science of the Greeks; they had produced from
their own ranks students of the first order, and had raised among their
initiators men who, without them, would have been groping in the dark;
and they showed from this time an aptitude for the exact sciences, which
was lacking in their instructors, whom they henceforward surpassed."

It was chiefly through the Nestorians that the Arabs became acquainted
with Greek medicine, and there were two famous families of translators,
the Bakhtishuas and the Mesues, both Syrians, and probably not
very thoroughly versed in either Greek or Arabic. But the prince of
translators