Military Influences 67 conference in 1863 to help in founding the Inter- national Red Cross Society. While medical science was stationary or even retrograding in western Europe during the Dark Ages, it was fostered in a remarkable 1 r rr^i -KT • Arabian way in the far east. The Nestorians influence were a sect banished from Rome to *^ _ - . , 1 i , medicine Edessa for heresy, very largely because of their interest in medical science. In Edessa they founded a medical school in connection with St. Ephrem's hospital. Thence they went to Persia, taking with them the Greek and Roman classics, and were received with distinction at the Persian coiirt. They built up many medical schools in which the ancient learning of India, Arabia, and Persia was cherished and taught with that of Hippocrates and his disciples. A number of famous medical centres of a most cosmopolitan character thus arose where no racial or religious exclusion was practised, and where many Jews and Arabs studied. The tradition of Greek medi- cine was thus kept alive and was brought back to Eiu"ope later, when the Arabs conquered Spain. The Arabians had inherited the wisdom of India, and the Nestorians found that, before the Christian era Arabian cities had had hospitals endowed by royal women and named for them.
