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8o FOURTH J)ISCOURSE. (JN
on a sure* and critical basisr And duringthesb fifteen centuries
which have elapsed since his time, no philosopher hath ,won to
.the inmost essence of his doctrine, nor travelled'~the high roSd
'of, his method, save that most excellent of the moderns, the
Philosopher of the East, the Proof of God unto His creatures,
(
Abu 'Ah' al-Husayn ibn 'Abdu'llah ibn' Sina (Avicenna). He
who finds fault with these two great men will have cut himself
off from the company of the wise, placed himself in the category
of madmen, and exhibited himself in the ranks of the feebleminded.
May God (blessed and exalted is He!) keep us from such
stumblings and vain desires, by His Favour and His Grace !
So, if the physician hath mastered the first volume of the
Qdmin, and hath attained to forty years of age, he vA\\ be worthy
of confidence ; yet even if he hath attained to this degree, he
should keep ever with him some of the smaller treatises composed
by proved masters, such as the " Gift of Kings "
MB
NS
( Tuhfatu'l-
Multiky of Muhammad ibn Zakariyya [ar-Razi], or the Kifdya
2
of Ibn Manduya of Isfahan or the , " Provision against all sort?
of errors in Medical Treatment "
( Taddruku anwtfi'l-khatd fi
't-tadbirit-tibbty of which Abu 'All (Avicenna) is the author ;
or the Khuffiyy-i-Ald'i*, or the "Memoranda" (Yddtgdr} 5 of
Sayyid Isma'il Jurjani. For no reliance can be placed on the
Memory, which is located in the most posterior (w) part of the
brain 6 and when it is slow in its , operation these books may
prove helpful.
Therefore every King who would choose a physician must
see that these conditions which have been enumerated are found
in him for it is no ; light matter to commit one's life and soul
into the hands of any ignorant quack, or to entrust the care of
one's health to any reckless charlatan.
1 No mention of such a work is made in any of the biographies pf ar-Razi.
2 Abu 'AH Ahmad ibn 'Abdu'r-Rahman ibn Manduya of Isfahan was a notable
physician of the fourth century of the hijra (tenth of the Christian 1
era). He was one
f the four and twenty physicians appointed by 'Adudu'd-DjC-vla to the hospital which
he founded at Baghdad. The proper title of the work to which our author here refers
appears to be al-Kdfi, not al-Kifdya.
:s This book was printed in 1305/1887-8 at Bulaq in the margins of the A'andfi'ul-
Aghdhiya -wa Maddrru-hd (" Beneficial fmd injurious properties of Foods ") of
ar-Razi.
4 A small manual of Medicine in Persian by the author of the Dhakhira-i-
Khwdrazin-shdhi, written by command of Atsiz Khwarazm-shah (succeeded to the
throne in 521/1127) and called after him, his title being 'Ala'u'd-Dawla.
5 Another small manual by the same author as the last. See Adolf Fonahn's
Zur Quellenkunde der Persischen Medizin (Leipzig, 1910), p. 105, No. iSov and
p. 129.
6
Concerning the Five Internal Senses and their supposed location in the brain,
see p. 8 supra, and also my Year amongst the Persians, pp. 144-145.