EBU SINA AVICENA, has been accounted the prince of Arabian physicians and philosophers. He was born at Assena, near Bokhara, in 978; and died at Hamadan in 1036, being fifty-eight years of age. The first years of Avicena were employed in the study of the Belles Lettres, and the Koran, and at ten years of age he was perfect master of the hidden senses of that book. Then applying to the study of logic, philosophy, and mathematics, he quickly made a rapid progress. After studying under a master the first principles of logic, and the first five or six propositions of Euclid's Elements, he became disgusted with the slow manner of the schools, applied himself alone, and soon accomplished all the rest, by the help of the commentators only. Possessed with an extreme avidity to be acquainted with all the sciences, he studied medicine also. Persuaded that this art consists as much in practice as in theory, he sought all opportunities of seeing the sick; and afterwards confessed that he had learned more from such experience than from all the books he had read. Being now in his sixteenth year, and already celebrated for being the light of his age, he determined to resume his study of philosophy, which medicine, &c. had made him for some time neglect; and he spent a year and a half in this painful labour, without ever sleeping all this time a whole night together. At the age of 21, he conceived the bold design of incorporating in one work all the objects of human knowledge, and he carried it into execution in an Encyclopedia of twenty volumes, to which he gave the title of the "Utility of Utilities." Many wonderful stories are related of his skill in medicine, and the cures which he performed. Several princes had been taken dangerously ill, and Avicena was the only one that could know their ailments, and cure them. His reputation increased daily, and all the princes of the east desired to retain him in their families as their physician. Mahmoud, the first sultan of the dynasty of the Samanides, was then the most powerful prince of the east. Imagining that an implicit obedience would be paid by all manner of persons to the injunctions of his will, he wrote a haughty letter to Mamim sultan of Kharazin, ordering him to send Avicena to him, who was at his court, with several of his other learned men. Philosophy, the friend of liberty and independance, looks down with scorn on the shackles of compulsion and restraint. Avicena, accustomed to the most flattering distinctions among the great, could not endure the imperious manner of Mahmoud's inviting him to his court, and refused to go. But the sultan of Kharasin, who dreaded his resentment, obliged the philosopher to depart with others whom that prince had demanded to be sent to him. Avicena pretended to obey; but instead of repairing to Gazna, he took the route of Georgian. Mahmoud, who had gloried in the thoughts of keeping him at his place, was greatly irritated at his flight. He despatched portraits done in crayons of this philosopher to all the princes of Asia, with orders to have him conducted to Gazna, if he appeared in their courts. But Avicena had fortunately escaped the most diligent search after him. He arrived in the capital of Georgian, where under a disguised name he performed many admirable cures. Cabous then reigned in that country. A nephew, whom he was exceedingly fond of, having fallen sick, the most able physicians were called, and none of them were able to know his ailment, or give him any ease. Avicena was at last consulted. As soon as he felt the young prince's pulse, he was confident that his illness proceeded from a violent love, which he durst not declare. Avicena commanded the person who had the care of the different apartments of the palace, to name them all in their respective order. A more lively motion in the prince's pulse, at hearing one of these apartments mentioned, betrayed a part of his secret. Avicena then ordered the keeper to name all the female slaves that inhabited that apartment. At the name of one of these beauties, the young prince could not contain himself; an extraordinary beating of his pulse completed the discovery of what he in vain desired to conceal. Avicena, now fully assured that this slave was the cause of the prince's illness, declared that she alone had the power to cure him. The sultan's consent was necessary, and he of course was curious to see his nephew's physician. He had scarce looked at him when he knew in his features those of the crayon portrait sent him by Mahmoud; but Cabous, far from forcing Avicena tofrepair to Gazna, retained him for some time with him, and heaped honours and presents on him. This philosopher passed afterwards into the court of Nedjmeddevle, sultan of the race of the Boindes. Being appointed first physician to that prince he found means to gain his confidence to so great a degree, that he raised him to the post of grand vizier. But he did not long enjoy that dignity. Too great an attachment to pleasure made him lose at once his post and his master's favour. From that time Avicena felt all the rigours of adversity, which he had thus brought upon himself by his ill conduct. He wandered about as a fugitive, and was often obliged to shift the place of his habitation, to secure his life from danger. He died at Hamadan, aged fifty-eight, A.D. 1036, and in the year of the Hegira 428. The knowledge he had of physic did not secure him from diseases. His excesses in pleasure, and his infirmities, made a poet say, who wrote his epitaph, that the profound study of philosophy had not taught him good morals, nor that of medicine the art of preserving his own health. After his death, however, he enjoyed so great a reputation, that till the 12th century he was preferred for the study of philosophy and medicine to all his predecessors. Even in Europe his works, which were very numerous, were the only writings in use, in the schools. The following are their titles:-1. Of the utility and advantage of Science, twenty books. 2. Of Innocence and Criminality, two books. 3. Of Health and Remedies, eighteen books. 4. On the means of preserving Health, three books. 5. Canons of Physic, fourteen books. 6. On Astronomical Observations, one book. 7. On Mathematical Sciences. 8. Of Theorems, or Mathematical and Theological Demonstrations, one book. 9. On the Arabic Language, and its Properties, ten books. 10. On the last Judgment. 11. On the Origin of the Soul, and the Resurrection of Bodies. 12. Of the End we should propose to ourselves in Harangues and Philosophical Argumentations. 13. Demonstrations on collateral lines in the Sphere. 14. Abridgment of Euclid. 15. On Finity and Infinity. 16. On Physics and Metaphysics. 17. On Animals and Vegetables, &c. 18. Encyclopedia, twenty volumes. Some charge him with having stolen what he published from a celebrated physician who had been his master. This man had acquired so much honour and wealth, that he was solicited by many to take their sons to be his scholars, or even his servants; but being resolved not to discover the secrets of his art, he would receive none of them. Avicena's mother formed the following stratagem; she offered him her son as a servant, pretending he was naturally deaf and dumb; and the youth counterfeited these defects so well, that the physician after making several trials to discover the reality of them, took the boy into his service, and by degrees trusted him so far as to leave his writings open in his room when he went abroad. Avicena took that opportunity to transcribe them, and carried the copies to his mother; and after the death of his master, he published them under his own name. Indeed if we reflect that he lived but fifty-eight years, that he was a wanderer and a fugitive, and that he was much addicted to pleasure, we shall have some difficulty to conceive how he could find time to compose so many works. Physic, however, is indebted to him for the discovery of cassia, rhubarb, mirabolans, tamarinds; and from him also, it was said, we have the art of making sugar. Many of his works are extant, and his Canon Medicinæ was printed at Venice in two vols. fol. 1608. |