Part 15

These itinerant drug sellers are occasionally referred to by the classic authors. Lucian speaks of one hawking a cough mixture about the streets; and Cicero, in his Oratia pro Cluentio, suggests that the travelling pharmacopolists who attended the markets of country towns were not unwilling to sell poisons as well as medicines when they were wanted. One of these is specifically named, Lucius Clodius, and the orator suggests that he was bribed to supply medicines to a certain lady which were to have a fatal effect.

The designation Periodeutes meant originally, and always in strict legal terminology, physicians who visited their patients. The term was also used among the Christians to describe the ministers charged to visit the sick and poor in their dioceses.

The tramp doctor in time gets tired of his vagabond life, and, it may be, a little weary of hearing his own voice. If he has saved a little money, therefore, the attractions of a shop in the city, where he can exercise his healing on people who seek him, appeal strongly to him. So in Greece and in the Roman Empire the charlatans settled in little shops and were called iatroi epidiphrioi or sellularii medici, meaning sedentary doctors. But all these were pharmacopoloi.

Peculiarly interesting is the suggestion made by Epicurus and intended as a sneer, that Aristotle was one of these pharmacopoloi in his younger days. According to Epicurus the philosopher having first wasted his patrimony in riotous living and then served as a soldier, afterwards sold antidotes in the markets up to the time when he joined Plato’s classes.

Seplasia was the ordinary name in Rome for a druggist’s shop, and those who kept them were designated Seplasiarii or Pigmentarii. These names appear to have been used without much recognition of their original meanings. Strictly the Seplasiarii were ointment makers, and though the Pigmentarii were no doubt at first sellers of dyes and colours, they evidently came to include medicines in their stocks of pigments, and Coelius Aurelianus, in writing on stomach complaints, alludes to aloes as a pigment. Greek designations corresponding to those just quoted were Pantopoloi and Kadolikoi (the latter used by Galen in referring to the trader who supplied the drugs for the theriacum prepared in the palace of the Emperor Antoninus). Kopopoloi, and Migmatopoloi, both of which words meant dealers in all sorts of small wares, were like the mercers in this country when shopkeeping first began. The shops of perfumers were myropolia or myrophecia, the perfumers themselves were myrepsi. A general term in Latin for any sort of shop where medicines were sold or surgical operations performed was Medicina. This was in the days before the Empire, when there was no usual distinction between the branches of the healing art.

Pharmacotribae, strictly drug-grinders, may have been compounders, and it has also been conjectured that they were the assistants employed by the Seplasiarii or Roman druggists.

Herbalists were of very ancient Greek lineage, under the names of Botanologoi, who were collectors of simples, and who, to enhance the price of their wares, pretended to have to gather them with many superstitious observances; and Rhizotomoi, or root-cutters. The name Apothek, which came to be appropriated to the warehouse where medicinal herbs were kept, and which is to-day the German equivalent of our pharmacy, or chemist’s shop, meant originally any warehouse, and from it has been derived the French boutique and the Spanish bodega.

The earlier Greek and Roman physicians were in the habit of themselves preparing the medicines they prescribed for their patients. But naturally they did not gather their own herbs, and as many of those used for medicine were exotics, it is obvious that they could not have done so if they had wished. The herbalists who undertook this duty (botanologoi in Greek) developed into the seplasiarii, pharmacopoloi, medicamentarii, and pigmentarii already mentioned. Beckmann says they competed with the regular physicians, having acquired a knowledge of the healing virtues of the commodities they sold, and the methods of compounding them. This could not help happening, but it ought to be remembered that the physicians of all countries had themselves developed from herbalists, that is, if we abandon the theories of miraculous instruction which are found among the legends of Egypt, Assyria, India, and Greece.

How similar the relations of the doctors and druggists of ancient Rome were with those still prevailing in this country may be gathered from a reproach levelled by Pliny against physicians contemporary with him (Bk. xxxiv, 11) to the effect that they purchased their medicines from the seplasiarii without knowing of what they were composed.

ARAB PHARMACY.

In the science of medicine the Arabians have been deservedly applauded. The names of Mesua and Geber, of Razis and Avicenna, are ranked with the Grecian masters; in the city of Bagdad 860 physicians were licensed to exercise their lucrative profession; in Spain the lives of the Catholic princes were entrusted to the skill of the Saracens; and the School of Salerno, their legitimate offspring, revived in Italy and Europe the precepts of the healing art.--GIBBON: “Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Chap. LII.

No period of European history is more astonishing than the records of the triumphant progress of the Arab power under the influence of the faith of Islam. From the earliest times this grand Semitic race was distinguished for learning of a certain character, for gravity, piety, superstition, a poetic imagination, and eloquence. Centuries of independence, jealously guarded, and innumerable local feuds made the material of perfect soldiers, and when Mohammed had grafted on the native religious character his own faith and missionary zeal the Arab army, the Saracens, as they came to be called, filled with fanatic fervour, and utterly indifferent to death, or, rather, eager for it as the introduction to the Paradise which their prophet had seen and told them of, formed such an irresistible force as on a small scale has only been reproduced by Cromwell in our nation.

But the rapidity of the conquests of Mohammedanism was perhaps less remarkable than the extraordinary assimilation of ancient learning and the development of new science among these hitherto unlettered Arabs. Mohammed was born in the year 569 of our era. The Koran was the first substantial piece of Arabic literature. Alexandria was taken and Egypt conquered by the Moslems under Amrou in A.D. 640, Persia and Syria having been previously subdued. Amrou was himself disposed to yield to the solicitations of some Greek grammarians, who implored him to spare the great Library of the city, the depository of the learning of the ancient world. But he considered it necessary to refer the request to the Caliph Omar. The reply of the Commander of the Faithful is one of the most familiar of the stories in Gibbon’s fascinating history. “If the writings support the Koran they are superfluous; if they oppose it they are pernicious; burn them.” It is declared that the papers and manuscripts served as fuel for the baths of the city for six months.

The destruction of the Alexandrian Library is often alluded to as a signal triumph of barbarism over civilisation. Gibbon cynically remarks that “if the ponderous mass of Arian and Monophysite controversy were indeed consumed in the public baths a philosopher may allow with a smile that it was ultimately devoted to the benefit of mankind.” But at least the spirit which animated Omar in 640 may be noted for comparison with the encouragement of learning which was soon to characterise the Arab rulers.

Only a lifetime later, in A.D. 711, the sons of the Alexandrian conquerors invaded Spain, and within the same century made their western capital, Cordova, the greatest centre of learning, civilisation, and luxury in Europe. The following quotation from Dr. Draper’s “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe” will give an idea of this achievement:

Scarcely had the Arabs become firmly settled in Spain than they commenced a brilliant career. Adopting what had become the established policy of the Commanders of the Faithful in Asia, the Emirs of Cordova distinguished themselves as patrons of learning, and set an example of refinement strongly contrasting with the condition of the native European Princes. Cordova under their administration, at the highest point of their prosperity, boasted of more than two hundred thousand houses, and more than a million inhabitants. After sunset a man might walk through it in a straight line for ten miles by the light of the public lamps. Seven hundred years after this time there was not so much as one public lamp in London. Its streets were solidly paved. In Paris, centuries subsequently, whoever stepped over his threshold on a rainy day stepped up to his ankles in mud. Other cities, as Granada, Seville, Toledo, considered themselves rivals of Cordova. The palaces of the Khalifs were magnificently decorated. Those sovereigns might well look down with supercilious contempt on the dwellings of the rulers of Germany, France, and England, which were scarcely better than stables--chimneyless, windowless, with a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape, like the wigwams of certain Indians.

About the same time the passion for learning was growing in the East. Bagdad was founded A.D. 762, and about the year 800 Haroun Al-Raschid founded the famous university of that city. Libraries and schools were established throughout the two sections of the Saracenic dominions. Greek and Latin works of philosophy and science were translated, but the licentious and blasphemous mythology of the classical poets was abhorred by this serious nation, and no Arabic versions of Olympian fables were ever made. Astronomy, mathematics, metaphysics, and the arts of agriculture, of horticulture, of architecture, of war, and of commerce, were advanced to an extent which this century does not realise, while amid all this progress the study of chemistry, medicine, and pharmacy was pursued with particular eagerness.

Curiously the Arabs owed their instruction in these branches of knowledge to those whom we are accustomed to regard as their traditional foes. The dispersion of the Nestorians after the condemnation of their doctrines by the Council of Ephesus in A.D. 431 resulted in the foundation of a Chaldean Church and the establishment of famous colleges in Syria and Persia. In these the science of the Greeks, the philosophy of Aristotle, and the medical teaching of Hippocrates were kept alive when they had been banished by the Church from Constantinople. The Jews had also acquired special fame for medical skill throughout the East, and they and the Nestorians appear to have associated in some of the schools. It was to these teachers the Arabs turned when, having assured their military success, they demanded intellectual advancement. The Caliphs not only tolerated, they welcomed the assistance of the “unbelievers,” and, in fact, depended on them for the equipment of their own schools, and for the private tuition of their children. To John Mesuë, a Nestorian, and a famous writer on medicine and pharmacy, Haroun Al-Raschid entrusted the superintendence of the public schools of Bagdad.

The first Nestorian college is believed to have been established in the city of Dschondisabour in Chuzistan (Nishapoor), before the revelation of Mohammed. Theology and Medicine were particularly studied at this seat of learning, and a hospital was established to which the medical students were admitted, but they had first to be examined in the Psalms, the New Testament, and in certain books of prayers.

It was the Caliph Almansor and his immediate successor, Haroun Al-Raschid, who between them made Bagdad a centre of study. Students and professors came thither from all parts of the then civilised world, and the Caliphs welcomed, and indeed invited, both Christians and Jews to teach there. Hospitals were established in the city, and the first public pharmacies or dispensaries were provided in Bagdad by Haroun Al-Raschid. It is on record that in A.D. 807 envoys from that monarch came to the court of Charlemagne bringing gifts of balsams, nard, ointments, drugs, and medicines.

Arabic medicine was based on the works of Hippocrates and Galen, which were for the most part translated first into Syriac, and then into Arabic. It does not come within the scope of this work to narrate or estimate the advance in medicine which may be accredited to the Arabian writers and practitioners. Medical historians do not allow that they contributed much original service to either anatomy, physiology, pathology, or surgery; but it is admitted by every student that their maintenance of scholarship through the half dozen centuries during which Europe was sunk in the most abject ignorance and superstition entitles them to the gratitude of all who have lived since. The medicine of Avicenna was perhaps much the same as that of Galen. Both were accepted by the physicians of England, France, and Germany with the slavish deference which the long burial of the critical faculties had made inevitable, and which needed the vigorous abuse of Paracelsus to quicken into activity.

Whatever may have been the case with medicine it cannot be denied that the Arabs contributed largely to the development of its ministering arts, chemistry and pharmacy. The achievements attributed to Geber in the eighth century were probably not due to any single adept. Tradition assigned the glory to him and, likely enough, if such a chemist really lived and acquired fame, other investigators who followed him for a century or two adopted the pious fraud so frequently met with in other branches of study in the early centuries of our era of attributing theories or discoveries to some venerated teacher in order to assure for them immediate acceptance. However this may be, it is not the less established that the chemistry of Geber, or of Geber and others, was in fact the fruit of Arab industry and genius.

Our language indicates to some extent what Pharmacy owes to the Arabs. Alcohol, julep, syrup, sugar, alkermes, are Arabic names; the general employment in medicine of rhubarb, senna, camphor, manna, musk, nutmegs, cloves, bezoar stones, cassia, tamarinds, reached us through them. They first distilled rose water. They first established pharmacies, and from the time of Haroun Al-Raschid there is evidence that the Government controlled the quality and prices of the medicine sold in them. Sabor-Ebn-Sahel, president of the school of Dschondisabour, was the author of the earliest pharmacopœia, which was entitled “Krabadin”; and Hassan-Ali-Ebno-Talmid of Bagdad in the tenth century, and Avicenna (Al-Hussein-Ben-Abdallah-Ebn-Sina) in the eleventh century prepared collections of formulas which were used as pharmacopœias.

It was the Arabs who raised pharmacy to its proper dignity. We do not read of any noted pharmacists among them who were not physicians, but the latter were all keen students of the materia medica, and occupied themselves largely with pharmaceutical studies. But it is evident that there was a distinct profession of pharmacy. We read of Avicenna, for example, taking refuge with an apothecary at Hamdan, and there composing some of his famous works. Elsewhere a quotation from Rhazes gives some indication of the irregular practice of medicine which has prevailed in every country and among all nations; and Sprengel quotes some translated items from various Arabic authors which show that as early as the ninth century the Government sanctioned the book of pharmaceutical formulas, compiled by Sabor-Ebn-Sahel, director of the School of Dschondisabour, already mentioned. His work was frequently imitated in later times. The first London Pharmacopœia was professedly based largely on the Formulary of Mesuë.

There is also evidence that both in civil life and in the army the pharmacists were closely supervised. Their medicines were inspected, and the prices at which they were sold to the public were controlled by law.

The development and progress of medicine and its associated sciences among the Arabs may be very concisely sketched. The flight of Mohammed from Mecca to Medina, the Hejira as it is called, from which the Mohommedan era is dated, corresponds in our chronology with A.D. 622. The prophet died in 632. Contemporary with him lived a priest at Alexandria named Ahrun or Aaron, who compiled from Greek writers thirty books which he called the Pandects of Physic. These were translated into Syriac and Arabic about 683 by a Jew of Bassora named Maserdschawaih-Ebn-Dschaldschal. It is not in existence, and is only known by references to it made by Rhazes. The first allusion to small-pox known to history was contained in these Pandects. Serapion quotes a number of formulas which he says were invented by Ahrun. In 772 Almansor, the Caliph who founded the city of Bagdad, brought thither from Nishabur (Dschondisabour) in Persia, a famous Christian physician named George Baktischwah, who stayed for some time, and at the request of Almansor translated into Arabic certain books on Physic. He then returned to his own land, but his son was afterwards a physician in great favour with the two succeeding Caliphs, Almohdi and Haroun Al-Raschid. Freind states that when the elder Baktischwah returned to Persia Almansor presented him with 10,000 pieces of gold, and that Al-Raschid paid the younger Baktischwah an annual salary of 10,000 drachmas. The last-named ruler also brought to Bagdad the Nestorian Christian, Jahiah-Ebn-Masawaih, who, under the name of Mesuë the Elder, retained a reputation for his formulas even up to the publication of the London Pharmacopœia.

Mesuë is noted for his opposition to the violent purgative medicines which the Greek and Roman physicians had made common, and he had much to do with the popularisation, if not with the introduction of, senna, cassia, tamarinds, sebestens, myrabolans, and jujube. He modified the effects of certain remedies by judicious combinations, as, for example, by giving violet root and lemon juice with scammony. He gave pine bark and decoction of hyssop as emetics, and recommended the pancreas of the hare as a styptic in diarrhœa.

A disciple of Mesuë’s, Ebn-Izak, added greatly to the medical resources of the Arabs by translations of the works of Hippocrates, Galen, Pliny, Paul of Egineta, and other Greek authors.