VI
ARAB PHARMACY.
In the science of medicine the Arabians have been deservedly
applauded. The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna,
are ranked with the Grecian masters; in the city of Bagdad 860
physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession; in
Spain the lives of the Catholic princes were entrusted to the skill of
the Saracens; and the School of Salerno, their legitimate offspring,
revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the healing art.—Gibbon:
"Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," Chap. LII.
No period of European history is more astonishing than the records of the triumphant progress of the Arab power under the influence of the faith of Islam. From the earliest times this grand Semitic race was distinguished for learning of a certain character, for gravity, piety, superstition, a poetic imagination, and eloquence. Centuries of independence, jealously guarded, and innumerable local feuds made the material of perfect soldiers, and when Mohammed had grafted on the native religious character his own faith and missionary zeal the Arab army, the Saracens, as they came to be called, filled with fanatic fervour, and utterly indifferent to death, or, rather, eager for it as the introduction to the Paradise which their prophet had seen and told them of, formed such an irresistible force as on a small scale has only been reproduced by Cromwell in our nation.
But the rapidity of the conquests of Mohammedanism
