English Medical Writers And Their Interest In Classical Arabic Medicine In The Seventeenth Century

Abstract

The sixteenth century saw the near demise of Arabic medicine. The humanists, led by men such as Leoniceno, Manardi and Fuchs, rejected the Arabic and the medieval Latin writers. However, despite protestations of principle, knowledge of Arabic medicine was quite widespread amongst European, and especially Italian, medical writers. Apart from the traditional inertia of pedagogy, the very scholarship of the humanist medical writers ensured that Arabic medicine stayed alive in renaissance Europe. The sense of distance between Arabic medicine and English early modern medicine is very apparent. Arabic medicine was known to Europe in Latin translation; but English medical writers began to write in their own tongue. The universalism of classical medicine, into which Arabic medicine was incorporated, was thus not only threatened by the loss of its universal language, Latin, but also by the doctrine of national remedies for each nation. Keywords: Arabic medicine; English medical writers