Moorish Physicians

After Rhazes, the most important contributors to medical literature from
among the Arabs, with the single exception of Avicenna, were born in
Spain. They are Albucasis or Abulcasis, the surgeon; Avenzoar, the
physician, and Averroes, the philosophic theorist in medicine. Besides,
it may be recalled here that Maimonides, the great Jewish physician, was
born and educated at Cordova, in Spain. It might very well be a surprise
that these distinguished men among the Arabs should have flourished in
Spain, so far from the original seat of Arabian and Mohammedan dominion
in the East, where, owing to conditions in the modern time, the
English-speaking world particularly is not likely to assume that the
environment was favorable for the development of science and
philosophy. Anyone who recalls, however, the history of Spanish
intellectual influence in the Roman Empire, as we have traced it at the
beginning of this chapter, will appreciate how favorable conditions were
in Spain for the fostering of intellectual development. With the
disturbances that had come from political strife and the invasion of the
barbarians in Italy, Spain had undoubtedly come to hold the primacy in
the intellectual life of Europe at the time when the Arabs took
possession of the peninsula.

Next: Abulcasis
Previous: Ali Abbas

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