Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/99

F E R F E R 89 Lothian, 20th March 1808. After receiving his early edu cation at Lochmaben and the High School of Edinburgh, lie entered the university of Edinburgh with the view of studying law, but soon afterwards abandoned his inten tion, and became a pupil of Robert Knox the celebrated anatomist. At the age of twenty he became a licentiate of the College of Surgeons, and he was elected a fellow in the following year. The ingenious fittings of a dissecting case which he had constructed by his own mechanical skill having attracted the attention of Knox, the latter engaged him as his demonstrator. While occupied in teaching anatomy he devoted his chief attention, under the direc tion of Knox, to the improvement of his surgical skill. In 1831 he became an extramural lecturer on surgery, and in 1836 he succeeded Listen as surgeon to the Royal Infirmary. In 1840 he was appointed professor of surgery in King s College, London, and surgeon to King s College Hospital. At first he acquired a practice in London only slowly, but after the deaths of the two Coopers and of Liston he soon held an unrivalled position in his own de partment. In 1849 he was appointed surgeon-in-ordinary to the Prince Consort, in 1855 surgeon-extraordinary to the Queen, and in 1866 sergeant-surgeon to the Queen. He was a fellow of the Royal Societies of Edinburgh and London, and of various medical societies. In 1865 he was created a baronet. He died at his Scottish residence in Peebles- shire, February 10, 1877. As a surgeon Fergusson s greatest merit is that of having introduced the practice of " conservative surgery," in many cases of diseased joints which before his time were treated by amputation. He made his diagnosis with almost intuitive certainty; and as an operator he was characterized by self-possession in the most critical circumstances, minute attention to details, and great refinement of touch, and relied more on his mechanical dexterity than on complicated instruments. Sir William Fergusson is the author of The Progress of Anatomy and Surgery in the Nineteenth Century (1867), and of a work on Practical Surgery (1st ed. 1842) which has a high repu tation as a text-book. FERID-EDDIN-ATHAR (1119-1229), or FARID UDDIN" ATTAK, a Persian poet and mystic, was born at Kedken, near Nishapur, 513 A.FI. (1119 A.D.), and was put to death 627 A.H. (1229 A.D.), thus having reached the age of 110 years. His real name was Mohammed ben Ibrahim, and Ferid Eddin was simply an honourable title equivalent to Pearl of Religion. He followed for a time his father s profession of druggist or perfumer, and hence the name of Athar or Attar, which he afterwards employed as his poetical designation. According to the account of Doulat Shah, his interest in the great mystery of the higher life of man was awakened in the following way. One day a wandering fakir gazed sadly into his shop, and, when ordered to be gone, replied : " It is nothing for me to go ; but I grieve for thee, O druggist, for how wilt thou be able to think of death, and leave all these goods of thine behind thee?" The word was in season; and Muhammed ben Ibrahim the druggist soon gave up his shop and began to study the mystic theosophy of the Sufis under Sheikh Rekenuddin. So thoroughly did he enter into the spirit of that religion that he was before long recognized as one of its principal represen tatives. He visited Mecca, and on his return was invested with the Sufi mantle by Sheikh Majduddin of Baghdad. The greater portion of his life was spent in the town of Shadyakh, but he is not unfrequently named Nishapuri, after the city of his boyhood and youth. The story of his death is a strange one. Captured by a soldier of Jenghiz Khan, he was about to be sold for a thousand dirhems, when he advised his captor to keep him, as doubt less a larger offer would yet be made; but when the second bidder said he would give a bag of horse fodder for the old man, he asserted that he was worth no more, and had better be sold. The soldier, irritated at the loss of the first offer, immediately slew him. A noble tomb was erected over his grave at Shadyakh, and the spot acquired a reputation for sanctity. Ferid Eddin was a voluminous writer, and has left no fewer than 120,000 couplets of poetry, though in his later years he carried his asceticism so far as to deny himself the pleasures of poetical composition. His most famous work is the Mantic Uttair, or language of birds, an allegorical poem containing a complete survey of the life and doctrine of the Sufis. It is extremely popular among Mahometans both of the Sunnite and Shiite sects, and the manuscript copies are consequently very numerous. The birds, according to the poet, were tired of a republican constitution, and longed for a king. As the lapwing, having guided Solomon through the desert, best knew what a king should be, he was asked whom they should choose. The Simorg in the Caucasus, was his reply. But the way to the Caucasus was long and dangerous, and most of the birds excused themselves from the enterprise. A few, however, set out ; but by the time they reached the great king s court, their number was reduced to thirty. The thirty birds (si morg] wing-weary and hunger-stricken, at length gained access to their chosen monarch the Simorg ; but only to find that they strangely lost their identity in his presence that they are lie, and he is they. In such strange fashion does the poet image forth the search of the human soul after absorption into the divine. The text of the Mantic Uttair was published l>y Garcin do Tassy in 1857; a summary of its contents by the same Orientalist appeared in the Revue Contcmporaine, t. xxiv., and was reprinted as La poisie philosophique et rcligieuse chez Us Fcrsans, 1856; and this was suc ceeded by a complete translation in 1860. Among Ferid-Eddin s other works may be mentioned his Pcnd Namch, or Book of Reflection, of which a translation by Silvestre de Sacy appeared in Lcs mines de I Orient, vol. ii. ; Bulbnl Namch, or Book of the Nightingale; Wasalct Namch, or Book of Conjunctions; Khvsru ra Gul, the King and the Rose; and Tczkiret al Aulia. See Sir Gore Ouseley, Biographical Notices of Persian Poets, 1846; Von Hammer Purgstall, Gcschichte dcr schoncn Rrdckilnste Persians, p. 140; The Oriental Collect ions, vol. ii., 1798; Palmer, History of Sufiism. FERISHTA, MOHAMMED KASIM, a celebrated Persian historian, was born about 1570, at Astrabad, on the shores of the Caspian Sea. Wliile he was still a child his father was summoned away from hisnative country into Hindustan, where he held high office in the Deccan ; and by his in fluence the young Ferishta received court promotion. In 1589 Ferishta removed to Bejapore, where he spent the remainder of his life under the immediate protection of the Shah Ibrahim Adil II., who engaged him to write a history of India. At the court of this monarch he died about 1611. In the introduction to his work a resume is given of the history of Hindustan prior to the times of the Mahometan conquest, and also of the victorious progress of the Arabs through the East. The first ten books are each occupied with a history of the kings of one of the provinces ; the eleventh book gives an account of the Mussulmans of Malabar ; the twelfth a history of the Mussulman saints of India ; and the conclusion treats of the geography and climate of India. Ferishta is reputed one of the most trustworthy of the Oriental historians, and his work still maintains a high place as an authority. Several portions of it have been translated into English; but the best as well as the most complete translation is that published by General Briggs under the title of The History of the Rise of the Mahometan Poicer in India (London, 1829, 4 vols. 8vo). Several additions have been made by Briggs to the original work of Ferishta, but he has omitted the whole of the twelfth book, and various other passages which had been omitted in the copy from which he translated. IX. 12