A   HISTORY   OF   MEDICINE
at the work of translating Greek medical texts into Arabic.^1
Sometimes the translation passed through the medium of Syriac,
and Professor E. G. Browne states that some of the Syriac trans-
lations are " so literal as to be quite devoid of sense.^3' If the
translator did not understand the meaning of a Greek word, he
transcribed it into Syriac characters and left the reader to con-
jecture the sense.^2 The direct Arabic translations, on the other
hand, were well rendered. Among the works translated were
those of Hippocrates, Galen, Dioscorides, Oribasius, and Paul
of jEgina,
The chief physician to the great hospital of Jundi-shapur was
jurjis BuKHT-YiSHU (George Bachtishua). He was the first of a
dynasty of six generations of pre-eminent doctors. A still more
famous member of this family of Syrian Christians was Jibra-il
or Gabriel, grandson of George and physician to the court of
Haroun al Raschid, of Arabian Nights fame. He must have been
one of the wealthiest medical men in history, as he accumulated
a fortune from fees representing three million pounds in our
coinage. On one occasion he received for curing a caliph a fee
computed to be equivalent to £25,000, while his salary was £1,000
per month, with a present of £1,250 each New Year's Day.
Another Christian physician of Jundi-shapur was hunayn ibn
better known as Honain or Johannitus, who lived early in
the ninth century.^3 He was responsible for many translations
of the Greek masters, and so excellent was his work that he is
said to have received for his manuscripts their weight in gold.
That he showed some originality is evident from his original
work, Questions on Medicine, and from his Ten Treatises on the Eye,
which is probably the earliest known textbook of ophthalmology.
By this time papyrus and parchment had been, supplanted by
paper invented in China, and a paper factory had been established
in Baghdad (a.d. 794).
Rhazes and Amcenna
Arabic medicine now entered upon a period of intense
activity, and there appeared one of the greatest, if not the
^1 A. CX Whipple, " Role of the Nestorians as the Connecting Link between Greek
and Arabic Medicine," Ann. Meet. Hist.) 1936, vol. viii, p. 313
 *	E. G. Browne, Arabian Medicine (Fitzpatrick Lectures), 1921, p. 28,   (Probably the
best and most concise account of the subject by an acknowledged authority.)
 *	L. M* Sa'di, "A Bio-bibliographical Study of Hunayn Ibn 3Es~Haq
(Johannitus), ajd, 809-877," Bull Hist. Med., 1934, vol & p. 409
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