ISLAM’S CONTRIBUTION TO MODERN SCIENCE

thousand skeletons. While examining these bones he discovered that the lower jaw consists of a single bone, not of two, as had been taught by Galen. It was the Arabs who invented the apothecary, and their pharmacopoeia, issued from the hospital at Gondishapur, and elaborated from time to time, formed the basis for Western pharmacopoeias. It is certain, however, that through them various new and useful drugs, such as senna, aconite, rhubarb, camphor, and mercury, were handed down through the Middle Ages. In medieval Europe, Arabian science came to be regarded with superstitious awe, and the works of certain Arabian physicians were exalted to a position above all the ancient writers. It was not the adoption of Arabian medicines, however, that has made the school at Salerno famous both in rhyme and prose, but rather the fact that women there practised the healing art. Greatest among them was Trota, who lived in the eleventh century, and whose learning is reputed to have equalled that of the greatest physicians of the day. She is accredited with a work on Diseases of Women, still extant. Avicenna (d. AD 1037), whose million-word encyclopedia, Canon of Medicine remained the supreme medical reference book for six centuries, can be considered the greatest physician of all peoples, places and times. Furthermore, his philosophical encyclopedia, Book of Healing, and his Book of Knowledge, place him among the world’s foremost thinkers. There can be little doubt that while the Arabians did copy and translate freely, they also originated and added considerably to knowledge. It is certain that in the time when Western Europe was paying little attention to science or education, the Caliphs and viziers were encouraging physicians and philosophers, building schools, and erecting libraries and hospitals. They made at least a creditable effort to uphold and advance upon the scientific standards of an earlier age. o (This article makes extensive use of the material furnished in Chapter 2: Mediaeval Science among the Arabians in Volume 2 of A History of Science by Henry Smith Williams and Edward H. Williams)