author's shorter work—the "Mansoury." It covers the entire field of medicine and is distinguished by its very practical character. It was first translated into Latin in 1127 A. D.
Haly Abbas, in one of his treatises, speaks of Hippocrates in the following terms: "Hippocrates, who is the prince of the medical art and the first physician who ever wrote a book on this art, is the author of many treatises on all sorts of medical topics. . . . But he writes in such a very concise manner that much of what he says is obscure, and as a consequence the reader, if he wishes to understand him, is obliged to seek the aid of a commentary."
Egypt.—The dynasty of the Fatimides—the descendants of Fatima (the daughter of Mohammed) and of Ismael, a great-grandson of Ali, the fourth of Mohammed's successors—reigned over Egypt for nearly two centuries (10th to 12th of the present era), and they showed toward the scientists the same spirit of generosity that had been manifested toward them by the Abbasides in the earlier part of their reign. In 970 A. D. Moëz Eddoula drove out the reigning family, assumed the title of Caliph, and founded the city of Cairo. In 972 he built the celebrated mosque Al Azhar and constructed, as a sort of annex to it, a school, a veritable university, where ultimately all the sciences were taught. It throve vigorously, and students flocked to it in great numbers from all quarters of the Moslem empire. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries Egypt was once more, as it had been in the palmy days of Alexandria, the home of many excellent and vigorous institutions of learning. Among the physicians, however, who received their education in medicine at Cairo during this long period, there was not one who attained great eminence.
At the end of the eleventh century the Crusaders, under the leadership of Godfrey de Bouillon and others, made their first serious attack on Palestine and Syria, and from that time onward, for about two centuries, they and the different armies sent out successively from Europe carried on almost constant warfare, which Michaud the distin-
