On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art | Page 4

authority of Cosmo-Indicopleustes, that so early
as A.D. 535 there was in almost every large town in India a Christian
Church under the Bishop of Seleucia.
With these facts before us--1st, that Christian physicians were the
leaders of the Arabian school in the eighth century; 2nd, that large
numbers of Christian churches were actually in existence in India at
least two hundred years previously to the establishment of the college
at Baghdad; and 3rd, that Baghdad was almost, as it wore, the central
point of the great caravan route which from time immemorial had been
the course of communication between the East and West, can we doubt
that an extensive intercourse must have taken place, and should we not
expect to find some traces, if not the effects, of Indian science on the
teaching of the Arabian school.[1]
[Footnote 1: As to communication, the case of Saggid Mahmud (given
in Bellew's Indus to the Tigris), who, merely to pray for the recovery of
his sick son, travelled with him from Ghazni by way of Kandahur and
Shikarpur to Bombay, thence by way of sea to Baghdad, from there to
Karbola, and back to Baghdad; and then by Kirmanshah and Kum to
Teheran, on his way home to Ghazni, gives an indication of the long
journeys taken under the most frightful difficulties. This long journey
had occupied six months only, and we read that in former times twelve
years were sometimes taken in trading journeys.]

In Vol. VIII. of the Journal of Education we find a notice that
"Professor Dietz, of the University of Königsberg, who had spent five
years of his life in visiting the principal libraries of Germany, Italy,
Switzerland, Spain, France, and England, in search of manuscripts of
Greek, Roman, and Oriental writers on medicine, is now engaged in
publishing his 'Analecta Medica.'
"The work contains several interesting papers on the subject of physical
science among the Indians and Arabians, and communicates several
introductory notices and illustrations from native Eastern writers. Dietz
proves that the late Greek physicians were acquainted with the medical
works of the Hindus, and availed themselves of their medicaments; but
he more particularly shows that the Arabians were familiar with them,
and extolled the healing art, as practised by the Indians, quite as much
as that in use among the Greeks.
"It appears from Ibn Osaibe's testimony (from whose biographical work
Dietz has given a long abstract on the lives of Indian physicians), that a
variety of treatises on medical science were translated from the Sanscrit
into Persian and Arabic, particularly the more important compilations
of Charaka and Susruta, which are still held in estimation in India; and
that Manka and Saleh--the former of whom translated a special treatise
on poisons into Persian--even held appointments as body-physicians at
the Court of Harun-al-Raschid."
As the age of the medical works of Charaka and Susruta is
incontestably much more ancient than that of any other work on the
subject (except the Ayur Veda)--as we shall see when we come to
consider the science of the Hindoos--this in itself would be sufficient to
show that the Arabians were certainly not the originators of either
medical or chemical science.
We should not forget that it is only to their own works and their
translations, chiefly by the Greeks, we owe our knowledge of the state
of Arabian science, and that it is only in rare cases that we have given a
list of works consulted, so that we can gather the sources from which
their knowledge was derived. It would scarcely be imagined, from
reading the works of Roger Bacon, or of Newton, that they had derived

some, at least, of their knowledge from Arabian sources; and yet such
is known to have been the case with them both.
Let us now glance backwards from the Arabians to the Greeks.
It is supposed that the first translations from the Greek authors were
made for the Caliphs about 745 A.D., and were first translated into
Syriac, and then into Arabic. The works of Aristotle, Euclid, Ptolemy,
Hippocrates, Galen, and Dioscorides are known to have been translated
under the reign of Al-Mansour.
Granting for the moment that the first knowledge of the sciences was
obtained by the Arabians from the Greeks, we are at once face to face
with the question. From whence did the Greeks obtain their knowledge?
To any careful reader it will be clear that Grecian science and
philosophy, like Grecian theology, was not of native birth. It is
comparatively well known that the Greeks were indebted to the
Egyptians for much of their theology as well as science. The great
truths which really underlay the mysterious religious rites of Egypt
seem to have been altogether lost when the Greeks wove their
complicated system of theology; and we read