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NOTE XXVII. CERTAIN EMINENT PHYSICIANS 149
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his great work the Hdwi (or Continens tof mediaeval Europe), so far
as I can judge from the portions of it accessible to me the
ijn original
Arabic, stands on ah altogether different plane from the Qdnun of
Avicenna or any other Arabic system of Medicine.
*
The year of Razi's birth is not
recorded^
but he seems to have spent
the first thirty years of his Sfe his
jn
native town of Ray(situated near
the modern Persian capital Tihran), from which he derived the naHTte by
. which he is generally known, without becoming famous for anything
except an unusual skill in music and singing. He was then seized wim
a to
Desire study Medicine and Philosophy, went to Baghdad, and there
became the pupil of 'Ali ibn Rabban 1
at-Tabari, formerly physician to
the unfortunate Persian rebel Mazyar and afterwards to the Caliph al-
Mutawakkil, for who.ui in A.I}. 850 he composed his remarkable work
the " Paradise of Wisdom "
(Firdawsu'l-Hikmaf). Having completed
his medical studies he became first
director
of the hospital at Ray and
2
then at . Baghdad He also devoted some attention^
to Alchemy, on
3
12 books but , the study brought him no luck, for,
which he composed
being unable to translate his theories into practice, he was struck on the
fyead by Jiis disappointed patron Manstir, governor of Ray, in consequence
of which he became blind. He refused to undergo an operation on his
eyes on ascertaining that the surgeon who was to it perform was ignorant
of the anatomy of the eye, adding afterwards that he had looked on the
world until he was tired of it.
The marvellous acumen displayed and the wonderful cures effected
by him form the subject of numerous anecdotes similar in character to
Nry XXXV in this book in such collections of stories as the Arabic
al-Faraj ba'-da'sh-Shidda ("Joy after Sorrow ")*of at-Tamikhi 4 and the
Persian JawdrnfuU-Hikdydt of 'Awfi.
Razf was a most prolific writer, and Qifti (pp. 274-7) enumerates
more than a hundred of his works, most of which, unfortunately, are
lost, while only a very few have been printed in the original, to wit his
celebrated treatise on small-pox and measles 5
his work on stone in the
kidneys
6
and bladder , and the anatomical
,
portion of the Manstiri 7 .
"Latin versions of the Hdwi ("Continens"), Mansurt ("Liber ad
Almansorem "), and various smaller works were made and widely read
in 'mediaeval Europe, and were in many cases printed during the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They are enumerated by Dr Ludwig
Choulant his Jn Handbuch der Biicherkunde fur die Altere Medicin
(Leipzig, 1841), pp. 340-5. One of the most interesting of Razi's minor
works, in which he discusses the reasons why quacks often enjoy
1 His father's rftinie & often wrongly given as Zayn (^>~jj), but he explicitly states
in the Introduction to his Firdawsul-Hikmat, or "Paradise of Wisdom," that he was
called Rabban "that is to
(\^-)j), say, our master and teacher." Ibn Ahi Usaybi'a
(i, 1 86) explains the title in precisely the same sense.
2 3
Qifti, p. 271.
Ibid., p. 272.
4 See the edition of this work printed at the Hilal Press, Cairo, in 1903, vol. ii,
p. 96. The author was born in 327/938-9 and died in 384/994-5.
6 De Variolis et Morbillis, arabice et latine, cura John Chatming (London, 1766).
6 Trait^ sur le Calcnl dans les Reins et dans la Vessie...traduction accomfagnte du
texte p"ar P. de Koning (Leyden, 1896).
7 Trots Traites d'Anatomie arabes...tfxte et traduction par P. de Koning (Leyden,
pp. 2-89.
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