ence, where Moorish influences were prominent, and of distant Spain,
Cordova, Seville, Toledo, Granada, Saragossa, all took up the rivalry
for culture which made this a glorious period in the history of the
intellectual life.

Already, in the chapter on "Great Physicians in Early Christian Times,"
I have pointed out that many of the teachers of the Arabs were Christian
physicians. Here it is proper to emphasize the other important factor in
Arabian medicine, the Jewish physicians, who influenced the great
Arabian rulers, and were the teachers of the Arabs in medicine and
science generally. These Christian and Jewish physicians particularly
encouraged the translation of the works of the great Greek physicians
and thus kept the Greek medical tradition from dying out. It is not
until the end of the ninth, or even the beginning of the tenth, century
that we begin to have important contributors to medicine from among the
Arabs themselves. Even at this time they have distinguished rivals among
Jewish physicians. Indeed these acquired such a reputation that they
became the physicians to monarchs and even high ecclesiastics, and we
find them nearly everywhere throughout Europe. Their success was so
great that it is not surprising that after a time the vogue of the
Jewish physicians should have led to jealousy of them and to the passage
of laws and decrees limiting their sphere of activity.

The great Jewish physician of the ninth century was Isaac Ben Soliman,
better known as Isaac el Israili, and who is sometimes spoken of as
d'Israeli. He was a pupil of Isaac Ben Amram the younger, probably a
grandson of another Isaac Ben Amram, who, after having become famous in
Bagdad, went to Cairo and became the physician of the Emir Zijadeth III.
The younger Isaac established a school, and it was with him that Israeli
obtained his introduction to medicine. He practised first as an oculist
and then became body-physician to the Sultan of Morocco. Because of the
sympathy of his character and his unselfishness he acquired great
popularity. Hyrtl refers to him respectfully as "that scholarly son of
Israel." Curiously enough, considering racial feeling in the matter, he
never married, and when asked why he had not, and whether he did not
think that he might regret it, he replied, "I have written four books
through which my memory will be better preserved than it would be by
descendants." The four books are his "Treatise on Fevers," his "Treati