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FABIVS PAVLINVS

Physician to those studying medicine. Greetings.

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I cannot sufficiently marvel at the levity of certain men of our time (for I do not wish to use a harsher word) who, having barely touched medicine with the tips of their lips (as they say), or as a dog approaching the sources of the Nile A classical proverb referring to the haste of a dog drinking from the Nile to avoid crocodiles; here it implies superficiality., nonetheless dare to condemn the principal writers of that art with a round mouth, as if they were arbiters of the craft. They especially neglect AVICENNA, whom they do not understand (which is the habit of the unlearned), and—which seems intolerable—they deter students of medicine from reading such a great author with their own insults. Therefore, I judged it necessary for me to warn you briefly, so that your ears might not be open to the prattle of such men, and your spirit might not be led away from the study of this Doctor. Without his guidance, I would not deny that one might perhaps know medicine, but I would assert that one certainly cannot be perfected in it, especially in Practice, which is considered the other leg of Medicine. From the most abundant fountains of Hippocrates and Galen, all things can and should indeed be drawn, and they are the true Leaders and the twin Suns of Medicine. However, in the darkness and night of Practice, unless one possesses a light—as it were, a Moon—borrowed from the rays of both those Suns, that is to say, Avicenna, one will hallucinate, wander, stumble everywhere, and dwell in the deepest gloom of ignorance. Whoever wishes to test what I say will understand that this is the case. For if anyone in any type of illness pays attention to what Hippocrates and Galen say, let him then read Avicenna, and he will find all things collected into a compendium by him in a wonderful order and with the greatest brevity, and as if gathered from everywhere. He will recognize that nothing at all has been omitted, many things have been illustrated and reduced to a method, and sometimes many more things have been added—things, however (miraculously), which he will not understand if he has not first illuminated his own mind with rays derived from that twin sun. Therefore, those who neglect Avicenna can be said, with merit, not to understand Galen and Hippocrates, especially regarding their inner essence and their skin A Latin idiom, "intus et in cute" (inside and under the skin), meaning to know something thoroughly.. And although there were in the previous age very learned men who condemned Avicenna, it must be judged that they wrote more out of a desire for contention than because they truly felt that way or out of a devotion to truth. For they had come to the opinion that they wished to impose a new sect on the physicians of their time, which would combine elegance of speech with medical doctrine, so that they might be distinguished from those who, content with mere erudition, despised these allurements and curling-irons of words—this cosmetic of speech (as they said)—and, instead of the purity of Latin speech, used the most impure barbarism, and even (if it pleases the gods) took pride in it. They called their own "Galenic," and this other "Avicennian" or "barbaric," distinguishing them not by reason but by chance. They noted not the disagreements of the authors or the variety of their dogmas, but rather the dissimilarity of the interpreters, who both happened to be different: one group translated from the Greek language, which is closer to ours, and were "Latin"; the others translated from the Arabic, which is divided by the distance of lands and the knowledge of words, and they were considered "less Latin" and "barbaric." That this is indeed the case, their own writings declare. If anyone examines them more diligently, they will seem to smell no less of Avicenna than of Hippocrates and Galen, and from them, it will appear clearer than light itself that they were no less enriched by the granaries of Avicenna than by the Hippocratic and Galenic harvest. In which it would perhaps have been better and more grateful if, grieving for the plight of such a great writer who deserved so well of them, they had learned the language of the Arabs, in which they say his golden style of speaking exists, and had made him speak Latin, casting aside barbarism—which, however, I predict will soon be done by someone. But some will say that Avicenna has erred in the very naming of herbs and animals. Truly, this happened also by the fault of the interpreters. But let us grant that he truly erred in some things; I do not wish to excuse him now, although I could do so on many counts. Was it not fair to forgive some minor faults in an excellent writer who deserved well of medicine, and to remember that all men, even the learned, wrote with human wisdom? Since they were human, something human can be found in them, and it is necessary that they should have hallucinated in something. This happened to Aristotle, this to Galen, this to the others. For, as Horace says:

When the good Homer nods.
And it is allowed for sleep to creep into a long work.

And what he asserted just before these same verses about poets, we can best transfer to physicians:

But when many things shine in a poem, I shall not be offended by a few
Spots, which either carelessness has poured,
Or human nature has not sufficiently guarded against—

Another presses the point and says that Avicenna speaks in a contradictory way in many places and opposes himself. To this, we wish to respond that if one reaches the marrow of what is being said, one will easily reconcile the contradictions, and in this, one is not naming Avicenna specifically, but Hippocrates as well, and Galen, and others, in whom learned men find huge contradictions (as they call them), which, however, those who read everything attentively easily resolve, as can be seen in these authors.