s in the practice of his chosen profession. This
son, Abraham, became the physician of Malie Alkamen, the brother of
Saladin, and, besides, was a physician to the hospital at Cairo. _His_
son, David, the grandson of Maimonides, practised medicine also at Cairo
till 1300. He in turn left two sons, Abraham and Solomon, who achieved
reputation in the chosen profession of their great-grandfather.

Maimonides, after the birth of his son, became one of the busiest of
practising physicians. Indeed, it is hard to understand how he had the
time to do any writing in his busy life. Still less can we understand
his time for teaching. He was the physician to Saladin, whose relations
with Richard Coeur de Lion have made him known to English-speaking
people. Every morning, as the Court physician, Maimonides went to the
palace, situated half a mile away from his dwelling, and if any of the
many officials and dependents that then, as now, were at Oriental
courts, were ill, he stayed there for some time. As a rule he could only
get back to his own home in the afternoon, and then he was, as he says
himself, "almost dying with hunger." Knowing the scantiness of the
Oriental breakfast, we are not surprised. There he found his
waiting-room full of patients, "Jews and Mohammedans, prominent and
unimportant, friends and enemies," he says himself, "a varied crowd, who
are looking for my medical advice. There is scarcely time for me to get
down from my carriage and wash myself and eat a little, and then until
night I am constantly occupied, so that, from sheer exhaustion, I must
lie down. Only on the Sabbath day have I the time to occupy myself with
my own people and my studies, and so the day is away from me." What a
picture it is of the busy medical teacher at all times in the world's
history, yet it must not be forgotten that it is from these busy men
that we have derived our most precious lessons in caring for patients
rather than disease, in the art of medicine rather than medical
science--and their practical lessons have been valuable long after the
fine-spun theories of the scientist that took so long to elaborate have
been placed definitely in the lumber room.

His reputation as a writer on medical topics is not as great as that
which has been accorded him for his writings on philosophy and in
Talmudic literature, but he well deserves a place among the great
practical masters of medicine, as well as high rank among the physicians
of his