Abraham,
usually known by the name of Donolo, who was famous both as a writer on
medicine and on astronomy. Donolo studied and probably taught at
Tarentum, and there were similar schools at Palermo, at Bari, and then
later on the mainland at Salerno. The foundation of Salerno, in which
Jewish physicians also took part, we shall discuss later in the special
chapter devoted to that subject.

One of the great translators whose work meant very much for the medical
science of his own and succeeding generations was the distinguished
Jewish physician, Faradj Ben Salim, sometimes spoken of as Farachi
Faragut or Ferrarius, who was born at Girgenti in Sicily. He made his
medical studies in Salerno and did his work under the patronage of
Charles of Anjou towards the end of the thirteenth century. His greatest
work is the translation of the whole of the "Continens" of Rhazes. The
translation is praised as probably the best of its time made in the
Middle Ages. Faradj came at the end of a great century, when the
intellectual life of Europe had reached a high power of expression, and
it is not surprising that he should have proved equal to his
environment. This translation has also some additions made by Faradj
himself, notably a glossary of Arabian names.

In Spain also Jewish physicians rose to distinction. The most
distinguished in the tenth century was Chasdai Ben Schaprut. Like many
other of the great physicians of this time, he had studied astronomy as
well as the medical sciences. He became the physician of the Caliph
Abd-er-Rahman III of Cordova. He seems also to have exercised some of
the functions of Prime Minister to the Caliph, and took advantage of
diplomatic relations between his sovereign and the Byzantine Emperor to
obtain some works of Dioscorides. These he translated into Arabian with
the help of a Greek monk, whom he seems also to have secured through the
diplomatic relations. Undoubtedly he did much to usher in that
enthusiasm for education and study which characterized the next
centuries, the eleventh and twelfth, at Cordova in Spain, when such men
as Avenzoar, Avicenna, and Averroes attracted the attention of the
educational world of the time. Jewish writers have sometimes claimed one
of the most distinguished of these, Avenzoar himself, as a Jew, but
Hyrtl and other good authorities consider him of Arabic extraction and
point to the fact that his ancestors bore the name of Mohammed. This is
not absolutely conc