4 ia A V I C E N N A; enjoy the fame advantage, and that what he had learned there might be taken for his own. A very remarkable ftory is told of Avicen's fagacity. When he was at Jorgan Kabus, the fovereign of the country fent for him to vifit his nephew, who was confined to his bed by a diforder, which baffled all the phyficians of that country. Avicen, having felt the young man's pulfe, and feen his urine, judged his illnefs to proceed from concealed love. He fent for the chief eunuch of the palace, and whilft he kept his finger on the patient's pulfe, defired him to call over the names of the feveral apartments: obferving great emotions in the fick man at the naming of one particular apartment, he made the eunuch name all the women in that apartment; and frnding his patient's pulfe to beat extremely high at the mention of one perfon, he no longer doubted but that fhe was the object of his paffion, and declared that his cure was only to be expe&ed from the enjoyment of that lady [B]. Avicennadied in the year 1036. He had a good conftitution, which he greatly impaired by a too free uie of ivomen and wine. The number of his books, including his finaller trails, is computed at near an hundred, the greateft part of which is either loft, or not known in Europe. Some charge him with having ftolen what he published from a ce- lebrated phyfician who had been his mafter. This man had acquired fo much honour and wealth, that he was folicited by many to take their fons to be his fcholars, or even his fer- vants ; but, being refolved not to difcover the fecrets of his art, he would receive none of them. Avicen's mother formed the following ftratagem : (he offered him her fon as a fervant, pretending he was naturally deaf and dumb ; and Gib.Sionit.the youth, by his mother's instructions, counterfeited thefe j. Hefron ! e f e t s f o vvell, that the phyfician, after making feveral trials de nonnullis /- L < r u i i i r Orit . rt Urb toducover the reality or them, took the boy into his iervice, annrxed to and by degrees trufted him fo far as to leave his writings open thcG.ogr. j n his room when he went abroad. Avicen took that oppor- Nubicnf. . , . . . . r cap. 3. tunity to tr an ten be them, and carried the copies to his mo- Joi.ufPhy-ther ; and after the death of his mafter published them under fic - his own name. " One would naturally expect," tays Dr. Frrind, " to find fomething in this author anfwerable to the
- great i :h ^--M, r he has had in the world; but though I
4< have very often looked unto his writings upon feveral oc- cations (for you will not fuppofe, I believe, that I have
[B] Dr. Frcind obferves the cafe to is ivlnted ff Er.ififtratu?, in a like ill- be lo parallel, that one would be apt to iv fs of Antiochus the foji of Selcucus. tkiok this account was ftoka trooi whit Hilt, of Phyiic, part ii.-p. 70.
