The touch of the man never reached me until I read some of his mystical and philosophical writings translated by Mehren.(15) It is Plato over again.  The beautiful allegory in which men are likened to birds snared and caged until set free by the Angel of Death might be met with anywhere in the immortal Dialogues.  The tractate on Love is a commentary on the Symposium; and the essay on Destiny is Greek in spirit without a trace of Oriental fatalism, as you may judge from the concluding sentence, which I leave you as his special message:  “Take heed to the limits of your capacity and you will arrive at a knowledge of the truth!  How true is the saying:—­Work ever and to each will come that measure of success for which Nature has designed him.”  Avicenna died in his fifty-eighth year.  When he saw that physic was of no avail, resigning himself to the inevitable, he sold his goods, distributed the money to the poor, read the Koran through once every three days, and died in the holy month of Ramadan.  His tomb at Hamadan, the ancient Ecbatana, still exists, a simple brickwork building, rectangular in shape, and surrounded by an unpretentious court.  It was restored in 1877, but is again in need of repair.  The illustration here shown is from a photograph sent by Dr. Neligan of Teheran.  Though dead, the great Persian has still a large practice, as his tomb is much visited by pilgrims, among whom cures are said to be not uncommon.

     (14) “L’hymne d’Avicenne” in:  L’Elegie du Tograi, etc., par P.
     Vattier, Paris, 1660.

     (15) Traites mystiques d’Abou Ali al-Hosain b.  Abdallah b.  Sina
     ou d’Avicenne par M. A. F. Mehren, Leyden, E. J. Brill, Fasc. 
     I-iv, 1889-1899.

The Western Caliphate produced physicians and philosophers almost as brilliant as those of the East.  Remarkable schools of medicine were founded at Seville, Toledo and Cordova.  The most famous of the professors were Averroes, Albucasis and Avenzoar.  Albucasis was “the Arabian restorer of surgery.”  Averroes, called in the Middle Ages “the Soul of Aristotle” or “the Commentator,” is better known today among philosophers than physicians.  On the revival of Moslem orthodoxy he fell upon evil days, was persecuted as a free-thinker, and the saying is attributed to him—­“Sit anima mea cum philosophic.”

Arabian medicine had certain very definite characteristics:  the basis was Greek, derived from translations of the works of Hippocrates and Galen.  No contributions were made to anatomy, as dissections were prohibited, nor to physiology, and the pathology was practically that of Galen.  Certain new and important diseases were described; a number of new and active remedies were introduced, chiefly from the vegetable kingdom.  The Arabian hospitals were well organized and were deservedly famous.  No such hospital exists today in Cairo as that which was built by al-Mansur Gilafun in 1283.  The description of it by Makrizi, quoted by Neuburger,(16) reads like that of a twentieth century institution with hospital units.