s, give the best idea to modern readers of the
place of Rhazes in the history of medicine is that Vesalius considered
it worth his while to make a translation of his principal work.
Unfortunately that translation has not come down to us. When Vesalius,
pestered by the controversies that had come upon him because of his
venturing to make his observations for himself, accepted the post of
physician to the Emperor Charles V, he burnt a number of his
manuscripts. Among these were his translation of Rhazes and some
annotations on Galen, which, as he says himself, had grown into a huge
volume. The Galenists were bitterly decrying his refusal to accept Galen
on many points, and both of these works would have added fuel to the
flame of controversy. He deemed it wiser, then, not to give any further
opportunities for rancorous criticism, and, feeling presumably that in
his new and important post it was not worth while to bother further over
the matter, he burnt them. He tells the reason in his letters to Joachin
Roelant: "When I was about to leave Italy to go to Court, since a number
of the physicians whom you know had made the worst kind of censure of
my books, both to the Emperor himself, and to other rulers, I burned
all the manuscripts that were left, although I had never suffered a
moment under the displeasure of the Emperor because of these complaints,
and in spite of the fact that a number of friends who were present urged
me not to destroy them."

Vesalius' translation of Rhazes was probably undertaken because he
recognized in him a kindred spirit of original investigation and
inquiry, whose work, because it was many centuries old, would command
the weight of an authority and at the same time help in the controversy
over Galenic questions. This, of itself, would be quite enough to make
the reputation of Rhazes, even if we did not know from the writings
themselves and from the admiration of many distinguished men as well as
the incentive that his works have so often proved to original
observation, that he is an important link in the chain of observers in
medicine, who, though we would naturally expect them to be so frequent,
are really so rare.

ALI ABBAS

Rhazes lived well on into the tenth century. His successor in prestige,
though not his serious rival, was Ali Ben el-Abbas, usually spoken of in
medical literature as Ali Abbas, a distinguished Arabian physician who
died near the end of the tenth century. He wrote a