ABSTRACT
Greek medicine reached the Islamic world before philosophy. Already in Ummayad times a Persian Jew by the name of Masarjawaih had translated the Pandects of Ahron, a Christian monk who lived in Alexandria not long before the Arab conquest, into Arabic. In Baghdad, Persian and Indian medicine became incorporated with the Greek. The process had in fact
already started in Gundishapur, and the teaching at that institution comprised all three elements. Thence a long line of celebrated physicians graduated and spread out over the Islamic world. They became particularly numerous at the court of the Caliphs. Some reached great eminence and even took part in public life; others helped to produce a till then non-existent Arabic literature on the subject. Among the latter, I:Junain was one of the earliest and most noted. The outstanding contribution that he made to the creation of Arabic philosophical literature, through his numerous translations from Greek, has already been noted. His renderings of medical works, though smaller in number, were no less important. According to his own claim, he translated practically the whole corpus of Galenic writings which ran into some hundred and forty books. He also translated from Hippocrates, including his Aphorisms; and some of Galen's commentaries on Hippocrates. In addition, he corrected the translation of the Materia Medica of Dioscurides; and made his own renderings of the Synopsis of Oribasius, and the Seven Books of Paul of Aegina. He did original work as well. He wrote Questions on Medicine which became well known; and another work called Ten Treatises on the Eye described as 'the earliest systematic textbook of ophthalmology known.' His pupils continued the translation of medical books with just as much interest and care as they devoted to the philosophical works.
