阿拉伯医学的诞生和发展

The Birth of Arab Medicine and Its Development

阿拉伯医学源自贝都因文化,其最初阶段处于古叙利亚、古希腊、萨珊波斯以及印度的影响之中。在先知穆罕默德离世仅仅两个世纪之后,阿拉伯医学融合吸收了浩如烟海的科学文献,树立了一个前所未有的典范。由于文献资料纷繁复杂,且其中一些时代较晚,因此很难追溯阿拉伯医学的开端。不过值得一提的是,阿拉伯史家有时会汲取古代文献资料并如实引述。诚然,很多文稿是历史重构而来的,但基于这些文稿的比较方法以及文献分析研究可以使我们有所收获,其中甚至包括伊斯兰早期医生的相关内容。阿拉伯医学初期的另一个特征涉及基督教医生的社会和政治地位问题,他们聚在阿拔斯王朝早期的哈里发身边,地位远高于穆斯林医生。诸多文献翻译(主要是将古希腊文和叙利亚文译成阿拉伯文)和为数众多的原创科学论著均归功于这些基督教医生。而这些频繁的活动也引起了医生间的嫉妒之心和诡计谋算。这些医生中侯奈因·伊本·伊斯哈格(·Hunayn ibn Ish·āq)最负盛名,他的传记便是极为精彩的例证。

Confronted from the outset with Syriac,Greek,Sassanid and Indian influences,Arab medicine of Bedouin origin offers,only two centuries after the death of the Prophet Muh·ammad,an unprecedented example of the assimilation of an enormous amount of scientific writings.The complexity of the sources and,in some cases,their late occurrence of means that it is not easy to trace their beginnings.However,it should be noted that Arab historians sometimes draw upon ancient sources which they cite faithfully.Certainly,many texts are the basis of historical reconstructions.However,the comparative method and philological study of these same texts also allows us to obtain certain results,even in the case of the first doctors of Islam.Another characteristic trait of the origins of Arab medicine concerns the social and political status of the Christian physicians who surrounded the first Abbasid caliphs,which was far superior to that of Muslim physicians.These physicians were responsible for translations-mainly from Greek and Syriac into Arabic—as well as for a very large number of original scientific treatises.These intense activities also aroused jealousy and intrigue,as the biography of the most illustrious of these physicians,H·unayn ibn Ish·āq,brilliantly illustrates.