s special
message: "Take heed to the limits of your capacity and you will arrive
at a knowledge of the truth! How true is the saying:--Work ever and to
each will come that measure of success for which Nature has designed
him." Avicenna died in his fifty-eighth year. When he saw that physic
was of no avail, resigning himself to the inevitable, he sold his goods,
distributed the money to the poor, read the Koran through once every
three days, and died in the holy month of Ramadan. His tomb at Hamadan,
the ancient Ecbatana, still exists, a simple brickwork building,
rectangular in shape, and surrounded by an unpretentious court. It was
restored in 1877, but is again in need of repair. The illustration here
shown is from a photograph sent by Dr. Neligan of Teheran. Though
dead, the great Persian has still a large practice, as his tomb is much
visited by pilgrims, among whom cures are said to be not uncommon.

(14) "L'hymne d'Avicenne" in: L'Elegie du Tograi, etc., par P.
Vattier, Paris, 1660.

(15) Traites mystiques d'Abou Ali al-Hosain b. Abdallah b. Sina
ou d'Avicenne par M. A. F. Mehren, Leyden, E. J. Brill, Fasc.
I-IV, 1889-1899.

The Western Caliphate produced physicians and philosophers almost as
brilliant as those of the East. Remarkable schools of medicine
were founded at Seville, Toledo and Cordova. The most famous of the
professors were Averroes, Albucasis and Avenzoar. Albucasis was "the
Arabian restorer of surgery." Averroes, called in the Middle Ages "the
Soul of Aristotle" or "the Commentator," is better known today among
philosophers than physicians. On the revival of Moslem orthodoxy he
fell upon evil days, was persecuted as a free-thinker, and the saying is
attributed to him--"Sit anima mea cum philosophic."

Arabian medicine had certain very definite characteristics: the basis
was Greek, derived from translations of the works of Hippocrates and
Galen. No contributions were made to anatomy, as dissections were
prohibited, nor to physiology, and the pathology was practically that
of Galen. Certain new and important diseases were described; a number
of new and active remedies were introduced, chiefly from the vegetable
kingdom. The Arabian hospitals were well organized and were deservedly
famous. No such hospital exists today in Cairo as that which was built
by al-Mansur Gilafun in 1283. The description of it by Makrizi, quoted
by Neuburger,(16) reads like that of a twentieth c