Athothis : a satire on modern medicine / by Thomas C. Minor.
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" True," replied Athothis. " Yet most of these men had an Egyptian education and the inspiration of the Orient. But who preserved even their works during the dark ages ? " " The Arabian school!" cried Paulus Androcydes, angrily. " These Israelites have never done any thing for the healing art. Name a single distinguished author they have produced." "I might mention Moses," remarked Athothis, quietly, " or the name of the founder of the religion you profess, whose doctrine was the equality of souls before Patah— love for your fellow-man and charity. Listen to me, my mortal friend: During bye-gone ages, when Europe was steeped in the darkness of religious fanaticism and the cross went down before the crescent and turban of Mahomet; when the Christians of Spain and Portugal were the slaves of the Moors and Turks, the Jews and Arabs were the only peoples really skilled in the healing art. When the cross once more triumphed over the crescent, the Jews inherited from the Arabs what both had originally derived from Egypt; for know that the Israelites were ever intimate with the Orient—trading, speaking many languages, and ever wise. It was the Jews who preserved the manuscripts and ancient writings of the Magi and philosophers of old, and this mass of erudition included not only the learning of Egypt, Phoe- nicia, Assyria, and the Arabian school, but likewise the wisdom of Greece and the entire Roman Empire. They were the dealers in rare drugs and medicines, amulets, charms and magical philters. It could not be otherwise, since the Jew, above all other races, inherits the fervent imagination of Egypt. Long held in bondage among a highly cultivated people, an intellectual race that had