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Avicenna, after this, is for having the part anointed with the syrup of hellebore, using proper evacuations and purges and I believe rightly. But thou must eat little or no goat's flesh, nor red deer nor even foal's flesh by any means; and carefully abstain that is, as much as thou canst, from peacocks, cranes, coots, didappers, and water-hens
The Arab Aristotelians, Al Kindi, Al Farabi, Avicenna and Averroes, while in the main disciples of the Stagirite, were none the less unable to steer clear of Neo-Platonic coloring of their master's doctrine, and they were the teachers of the Jewish Aristotelians, Abraham Ibn Daud, Moses ben Maimon, Levi ben Gerson.
The outer limbs thereof be as it were the outer limbs of a lion, and his tail is like to a wild scorpion, with a sting, and smiteth with hard bristle pricks as a wild swine, and hath an horrible voice, as the voice of a trumpet, and he runneth full swiftly, and eateth men. And among all beasts of the earth is none found more cruel, nor more wonderly shape, as Avicenna saith.
Avicenna suggests that the patient stand upon the foot of the side affected, lean his head over to the same side, steady it in that position with the hands, and then leap suddenly over upon the other foot demonstrating thereby his knowledge of both gravity and inertia. Manifestly our "laboratory physicians" of the present day can assume no airs of priority!
In the discussion of this last variety we are introduced to the "ros" and "cambium" of Avicenna, apparently varieties of hypothetical humors. Much emphasis is laid upon the dietetics of fevers, and this branch of treatment is highly elaborated. Complications are met by more or less appropriate treatment, and the condition of the urine is studied with great diligence.
Complaining of the want of books, Bacon says, "The books on philosophy by Aristotle and Avicenna, by Seneca and Tully and others, cannot be had except at great cost, both because the chief of them are not translated into Latin, and because of others not a copy is to be found in public schools of learning or elsewhere.
As to the first of these objections, it may be said that very probably Constantine, in his travels, had come to realize that the books of the great Arabian physicians, Rhazes, Abulcasis, Avicenna, and others, already received so much attention that the best outlook for medicine was to call particular notice to the writings of such lesser lights as Ali Abbas, Isaac Judæus, Abu Dschafer, and others of even less note.
This man was the pupil of the learned Rhazes, and the tutor of the equally learned Avicenna, the link, in fact, between them; but his name, for some reason, perhaps because he mixed with his practice a greater degree of mysticism than was approved by the Arabian schools of the next generation, has not come down to us.
His first book on anatomy he proposed to found on that of Avicenna and "on his personal experience as he has seen it." The second tractate on the treatments of wounds, contusions, and ulcers was founded on the second book of Theodoric "with whatever by recent study has been newly acquired and brought to light through the experience of modern physicians."
He proclaimed himself the monarch of medicine, and publicly burned the writings of Galen and Avicenna as pretenders and impostors. This however was the acme of his prosperity. His system was extremely popular for one year; but then he lost himself by brutality and intemperance.
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