years of Avicenna's life were spent in the service
of Abu Ya'far 'Al[=a] Addaula, whom he accompanied as physician and general
literary and scientific adviser, even in his numerous campaigns. During
these years he began to study literary matters and philology, instigated,
it is asserted, by [v.03 p.0063] criticisms on his style. But amid his
restless study Avicenna never forgot his love of enjoyment. Unusual bodily
vigour enabled him to combine severe devotion to work with facile
indulgence in sensual pleasures. His passion for wine and women was almost
as well known as his learning. Versatile, light-hearted, boastful and
pleasure-loving, he contrasts with the nobler and more intellectual
character of Averroes. His bouts of pleasure gradually weakened his
constitution; a severe colic, which seized him on the march of the army
against Hamad[=a]n, was checked by remedies so violent that Avicenna could
scarcely stand. On a similar occasion the disease returned; with difficulty
he reached Hamad[=a]n, where, finding the disease gaining ground, he
refused to keep up the regimen imposed, and resigned himself to his fate.
On his deathbed remorse seized him; he bestowed his goods on the poor,
restored unjust gains, freed his slaves, and every third day till his death
listened to the reading of the Koran. He died in June 1037, in his
fifty-eighth year, and was buried in Hamad[=a]n.

It was mainly accident which determined that from the 12th to the 17th
century Avicenna should be the guide of medical study in European
universities, and eclipse the names of Rhazes, Ali ibn al-Abbas and
Avenzoar. His work is not essentially different from that of his
predecessors Rhazes and Ali; all present the doctrine of Galen, and through
Galen the doctrine of Hippocrates, modified by the system of Aristotle. But
the _Canon_ of Avicenna is distinguished from the _Al-Hawi_ (_Continens_)
or _Summary_ of Rhazes by its greater method, due perhaps to the logical
studies of the former, and entitling him to his surname of Prince of the
Physicians. The work has been variously appreciated in subsequent ages,
some regarding it as a treasury of wisdom, and others, like Avenzoar,
holding it useful only as waste paper. In modern times it has been more
criticized than read. The vice of the book is excessive classification of
bodily faculties, and over-subtlety in the discrimination of diseases. It
includes five books; of which the first and second treat of phys