sign in sign up
<<
Home , Assyrians in Greece, Cyrus of Alexandria, Nestorianism, Trinity

RÔLE OF THE NESTORIANS

AS THE CONNECTING LINK BETWEEN GREEK AND ARABIC MEDICINE*

By ALLEN O. WHIPPLE, M.D.

NEW YORK

HIS paper deals with a period by the question of how Greek culture, of history which is rather dif- which so nearly perished, was trans- ficult to define, for its study in- mitted through the Dark Ages to renas- cludes the last part of the an- cent Europe. As Sarton1 so clearly states cient period and the early centuriesin his of “Introduction to the History of Tthe . Even from the point Science”: of view of Mediterranean culture it is From the point of view of the history of difficult to say when ancient thought science transmission is as essential as dis- ended and medieval thought began. If covery. If the results of Ptolemy’s investi- the Fathers of the ushered in gations [in astronomy] had been hidden the medieval period and ended pagan instead of published, or if they had been civilization their chief accomplishment, lost in transit, they would be almost as if considered from the standpoint of sci- they had never been. ence and world culture, lay in the fact If there were no other reason to study that they created a new contact between medieval science than to find out how an- Greek and Oriental thought. It is im- cient knowledge was handed down to us, portant to conceive of Ancient Civiliza- that reason would be sufficient. The aver- tion, the Middle Ages and Renaissance age man of science, perhaps lacking in as not exclusive but as overlapping. historical training, cannot imagine the Certainly in the period of history under complexity of the problems involved. The consideration antiquity merges by im- transmission of modern science is almost perceptible gradations into the Middle automatic; a discovery published in any Ages. scientific journal is within a relatively short time quoted and discussed in a num- In many students of medical history ber of other papers which circulate all over and medical science the mention of the the world. Any scientist, working along Middle or Dark Ages creates a feeling the same line, is bound to hear of it, either of disinterest. if not antagonism. The directly or indirectly, and in the latter case term Dark Ages implies a period of re- he will have no difliculty in obtaining a gression, a time of endless controversy, copy of the original text. A hundred agen- the fruitless arguments of . cies have solved the problem of transmis- If one admires—and who does not—that sion so completely that the individual sci- marvelous bloom of Greek art, science entist does not think of it any more. In and culture in the short period of the the Middle Ages these agencies did not sixth to the fourth centuries before the exist, publication in manuscript form was Christian Era, well termed the “Greek necessarily very limited, and it could never Miracle,” one cannot but be intrigued be standardized. Moreover, political vicis- *From the Department of Surgery, Columbia University. Read before the Section of Historical and Cultural Medicine, N. Y. Academy of Medicine, January 8, 1936. situdes caused innumerable difficulties. was the transmitting medium. It is the Some discoveries had to cross in slow stages w/zy rather than the how which has in- the whole of Asia and Europe before reach- terested the writer. In this paper an ing the West and integrated into the attempt will be made to analyze the sev- main scientific current wliich has come eral factors that resulted in the Nes- down to us. Some writings had to be trans- torians playing this role of the connect- lated many times before reaching their ing link between Greek and Arabic fmal assimilation; thus many Greek texts became a part of our intellectual patri- medicine. mony only after having been translated Who were the Nestorians and their from Greek to Syriac, from Syriac to Ara- ancestors? Where did they live? What bic, then into , and finally into our were the political and economic factors own language. These translations were in the history of that time that molded imperfect, and in the case of important them and determined their course? works, seldom unique; thus occurred con- How was their national character influ- flicting traditions which caused new dif- enced by the and philosophy of ficulties. the period? These are some of the ques- It does not matter whether we like me- tions that naturally come to mind. diaeval science or not; the fact remains Their answers will very largely explain that we cannot arbitrarily neglect it, if we would understand the continuity of hu- the wliy of the title of this communica- man progress. Even if mediaeval scien- tion. tists had not made any original contribu- Exact knowledge of the origin of the tions we should still be obliged to study Nestorians is lacking. In all probability their activity, else it would be impossible their ancestors were a Semitic race, to explain the origin of our present knowl- known as the Aramaeans, which mi- edge. Whatever we learned from the an- grated north from the Arabian penin- cients could not be taught us directly; it sula into what is now spoken of as , could only reach us by some continuous and spread eastward into what the traditions which it is our duty to ferret out. later called . The Arab chroniclers referred to them as the So to students of medical history Nabateans. I am indebted to Professor there are now available many brief, more or less accurate accounts of how Hitti of Princeton University for the Greek science and Greek culture were data regarding the probable origin of transmitted through the Mesopotamian the Nestorians. (Map i.) schools, especially those of and For centuries as Aramaeans they had Gondi-Sapor, in the translations from been given to commerce and by their the Greek into Syriac or , and caravans had come in contact witli coun- from the Syriac into Arabic, by the tries north, south, east and west of Meso- rather small, unorthodox Christian potamia. Conquered by the forces of of Nestorians who dominated these they remained under Greek Mesopotamian schools during the third control until the Seleucidae, torn by in- to the seventh centuries of the Christian ternal strife and political intrigue, gave era. But the mere recording of how up the defense of their Mesopotamian Greek culture and Greek medicine were possessions. There then arose small transmitted by the Nestorians to the kingdoms or principalities in northern Arabic conquerors does not tell why this Mesopotamia, among them Osrhoëne Christian community of Semitic race and . The small kingdom of Osrhoëne is of special interest to our given in its relation to Edessan litera- subject. for it was in this principality ture and thcology by Duval5 in his “His- that we first hear of Edessa, its capital. toire d'Edesse.”

History2 fairly definitely assigns the Edessa is the Greek name for what founding or rebuilding of Edessa to was called by the Assyrians Ourhai, by Seleucus Nicator in 304 b .c . After the the Arabs Ar-Ruha, and today still withdrawal of the Seleucidae, Edessa exists under Turkish rule as the town was the capital of Osrhoëne under the of Urfa. After its founding in the third rule of a line of kings of a mixed race century b .c . it rcmained a pagan town of Nabatean, Armenian and Parthian until about the middle of the second origin. Barhebraeus,3 speaking of these century when it is said to have been the people, says: “Parthian, Persian, Edes- first city in Mesopotamia to be Chris- san and Armenian are all one.” tianized. Thcre is a most attractive leg- The chronicle and chronology of the cnd, inaccurate though it bc chrono- Osrhoëne kings are based upon a single logically, connccted with the conversion ms in the Vatican, known as the “Chron- of the city to : Abgar Ouk- icle of Dionysios of Tell-Mahre” writ- hatna, thcn reigning over Osrhoëne, ten in 776 a .d . and translated bv As- hearingof the miraculous cures of , semani in his “Bibliotheca Orientalis.” scnt him a lettcr asking him to come to This was retranslated by Noëldeke4 and Edcssa to cure him, the King, of a fatal this revised and corrected Chronicle is disease. Jesus rcplied to Abgar: Thou art fortunate, thou who believest living in what is now the province of in me, not having seen me. For it is writ- Kansu, left their ancestral home and ten of me that those who see me do not began swarming to the west and south. believe in me, but those who do not see Within a scant two centuries they had me, believe in me. As to your asking me taken over the eastern provinces of what to come to you, the work for which I was sent is about to be accomplished and I had been Alexander’s empire, con- am to return to my Father who sent me. quered part of Persia, and had become After I have ascended to Him I shall send a threat to Rome. When China con- you one of my disciples who will cure your quered eastern Turkestan a caravan sickness and will convert you and those route was opened between China across about you to life eternal. Thy city shall the Indo-Scythian kingdom to the Per- be blessed and no enemy shall prevail sian and Roman Orient. Thomas Fran- against it.6 cis Carter, in his monograph on the In- This “Legend of Abgar” states that vention of Printing in China,7 one of Addai, supposedly one of the seventy the most scholarly pieces of research of apostles, was sent by the Judas the past decade, discusses the great silk Thomas, who healed Abgar and as a re- ways; he lists the peach and the apricot, sult of this miracle and his preaching silk and tea, porcelain and paper, play- converted Edessa to Christianity in 32 ing cards and probably gunpowder and a . d ., and built a church from the money the compass as some of China’s gifts to which King Abgar gave him. the West. The grape and alfalfa, the car- So we find the Assyrians at the begin- rot, glass manufacture, Nestorian Chris- ning of their Christianity a somewhat tianity and Mohammedanism, the al- mixed race living in a land which fa- phabet and some impulses of Greek art vored their coming in contact with sev- are a few of the things that the countries eral of the great cultures, Greek to the of the East received in return. Berthold north. Roman to the west, Egyptian or Laufer8 states that from the Christian Ptolemaic to the south and Persian to era down to the Mongol period the the east. Geographically they occupied knowledge of twenty-four agricultural territory that lay on the main commer- products passed from China to Persia cial routes between the East and the and westward, and sixty-eight from west West, the North and the South. to east. Cathay had certain commodities, es- Silk was probably the most desired pecially silk, that the Chinese product. It reached Europe needed and coveted. The great silk ways sometime before the Christian era, but were the result of this supply and de- the process of producing silk was kept mand. With the establishment of a secret until the sixth century. Virgil Roman power in the West and the dom- and other Roman writers considered ination of the Han Dynasty in China silk a vegetable product and thought it this caravan route between the Mediter- was combed from trees. It was not until ranean and China emerges into history. the reign of Justinian in the middle About the middle of the second century of the sixth century that Nestorian mis- b . c . there began one of those primeval sionaries returning from the Far East migrations from the borders of China reported that silk was not “combed to the West. What the urge was is not from trees,” but was made by caterpil- known, but the Indo-Scythians, spoken lars. At Justinian’s instigation these of in Chinese as the Yüeh Chih tribe, priests journeyed to Khotan in Chinese Turkestan and returned with the pre- 1 his mention of the Nestorian mis- cious caterpillar eggs hidden in the long sionary brings up the subject of the in- bamboo staff of one of their number. If fluence of religion and philosophy in

this story told by Greek chroniclers is the evolution of the , true, the culture of the silkworm in Eu- and it is a most important influence. rope and the Near East was started from Following the introduction of Chris- the eggs carried in the bamboo staff of tianity the inhabitants of Osrhoëne and a Nestorian . This geograph- Adiabene took a very active part in the ical location of the Assyrians and their early diffusion of Christianity through- contacts with the great civilization com- out Asia Minor, and Meso- prise the flrst great factor in the Nes- potamia. They were especially active in torian’s röle in medicine. (Map n.) collecting and translating the Scrip- tures, in fact were the first Christian sect Edessa and Nisibis. The latter town had to translate the Olcl Testament from the changed hands several times between Hebrew into their own vernacular, the warring Roman emperors and Sassanian Syriac, in what has ever since been Persian kings. The emperor Julian died known as the version. This was in 364 a .d . while fighting with the Per- completed about the middle of the sec- sians. His successor, Jovian, made a ond century. The Jews had begun and rather ignominious treaty with the Sas- were still occupied in editing the Tal- sanian Persian King Sapor 11, in which mud. There was a very active argument he gave up Nisibis to the . This among these Semitic scholars as to what resulted in a large part of the rich and was and was not the authorized Scrip- learned Christian inhabitants of Nisibis ture. Like all true Semites the Assyrians migrating from that city to their co- were great respecters of Authority, but religionists in Edessa. In the latter city, there was bitter and constant argument probably in 363-364 a .d ., they organized as to what was the ultimate authority. It the which, because its is most interesting to note here, because founders had come from Persian terri- of its bearing on their subsequent fa- tory, came to be known as the “Persian miliarity with Greek in relation to medi- School" of Edessa. In this school, be- cine, that these Assyrian scholars ap- cause of the previous activities of the plied themselves diligently to the study in translating the Scrip- of Greek so that they could read at first tures, was the major subject, hand the Septuagint version of the Old but medicine was growing as a study, Testament which had been completed and rapidly coming to the fore in the in Alexandria in 132 b .c . This Greek attention it attracted. A hospital is said version was made by a group of about to have been founded by St. Ephraim seventy Alexandrian Jews who had for- and was used by the teachers of medi- gotten their Aramaic vernacular. It cine in the school for clinical instruc- antedated by at least a century the stand- tion. ard Hebrew text of the Sopherim. The The of Nicea in presence of two separate 325 had proceeded to define the Catho- canons was the cause of bitter argu- lic and had apparently put an end ment and controversy, and it was be- to the . It is extremely cause of this that the Aramaean scholars difficult to reconcile the ideas of Mono- in Edessa published the Peshitta ver- and the , and to explain sion and became familiar with the Greek the of the persons of the Trin- language and by it Greek science, Greek ity to one another. The attempts to do medicine and Greek literature. This is so have resulted in endless arguments the second great factor in the Nestorian and these constitute a good part of röle in medicine. Patristic literature. The Council of The third great factor was the estab- Nicea may have defined the orthodox lishment of the great school of Edessa. faith, but it started many church con- The interest of the early Assyrian troversies, only one of which is of in- church fathers in the Greek version of terest in connection with the subject of the Scriptures and the resulting con- this paper. tacts with Greek scholarship created an About the time of the founding of atmosphere of study and investigation the Persian School in Edessa there was in the Assyrian towns, especially in born near Mount Taurus an Aramaean priest named Nestorios. He became tbe ers and students turned to what they of Constantinople in 428. He considered more profitable intcllectual early came into conflict with the ortho- activity, that is, the study and practice dox fathers of the church because of his of medicine. As Sarton10 so well puts it: heretical , consisting in his The innate jealousy and irritability of denial of the complete mergence of the theologians is a centrifugal force which divine and human natures in the person continuously tends to drive farther and of and especially in his assertion farther away those of them whose intellec- that Mary, the Mother of Clirist, should tual submission and conformity are not not be called the Mother of . For . The cultural diffusion is thus ac- his he was deposed at the Coun- complished not only by , but cil of Ephesus in 431, and he and his also by religious refugees and exiles, by many adherents in the Assyrian Church those cast out, by heretics. The Nestorian were excommunicated. His followers lieresy which originated in 431 is one of were as a result called Nestorians, and those great centrifugal forces due to theo- from the time of 431 have constituted logical hatred: it pushed Christianity across mountains and deserts as far as the so-called Eastern Syrian, or Nes- China, and tlms became a very important torian, Church. This Church row is per- link between East and West. haps in itself uninteresting, but it had a profound influence on medical his- The Nestorians went on into South- tory. ern and in Malabar organized a The Nestorians, for we may now call Nestorian church and community the Eastern Syrians Nestorians, were which still exists as a Christian sect. The largely concentrated in upper Mesopo- church is known as that of Mar Thuma, tamia and east of the Tigris. Edessa was or St. Thomas. This is the fourth great their headquarters for a time, and the factor. famous school became the center of This is not the occasion to describe in their teaching. By 488 the controversy detail the far-reaching tours of the Nes- had flared to renewed activity and torian missionaries. But from the fifth Cyrus , the arch- century 011, following their expulsion enemy of the Nestorians, persuaded the from Edessa and their establishment in Emperor to abolish the School. Persia, an increasing number of these This was done in 489? This great school, Nestorian zealots penetrated eastward, the center of culture for the East, came reaching China, Siberia and India. This abruptly to an end. The teachers and dis- has been established by the excavations ciples were convicted of , and ex- in Furkestan and China, where remains pelled from Edessa. Many of them were of Christian churches have been un- given asylum in Persia, where their sub- earthed and mss in Syriac and Persian, sequent history will be discussed later. with the correspondence of these priests The site occupied by the famous school with their mother churches in Mesopo- was used to erect a new orthodox church tamia have been discovered. Fhese have and given the significant name of Our more than confirmed the amazing rec- Lady, Mother of God. ord carved in the famous Si-an-fu stone The banishment of the Nestorians monument describing the introduction from the school and city of Edessa had of Christianity into China in the sev- several interesting results. The zealots enth century by the Nestorian mission- became missionaries; many of the teach- aries.11 Following the closing of the school in ture of the Roman Emperor Valerian Edessa many of the theologians, under and the sacking of the famous city of the leadership of Bar-Soma, the deposed Antioch. (See Figs. 1 and 2.) Sapor

head of the School, went back to Nisibis in Persian territory, whence the found- ers of the school had originally come, and established a new school there.12 Other teachers and pupils, perhaps less zealous in their strict , ac- cepted the asylum offered them by the named the new city Veh-az-Andev-i- Sassanian King Kobad and migrated to Sapor, meaning in Pahlawi “Sapor’s Gondi-Sapor in southwestern Persia. Better than Antioch,” a name which They brought with them Syriac transla- was gradually changed to Gondi-Sapor, tions of Greek medical works of Hip- or in Arabic, Jundi-Sabur. It was sit- pocrates and Galen by Sergius of Ra’s uated in southwestern Persia in Susiana, al-ain, and the earliest Syriac transla- what is now known as the province of tions of Aristotle by Probos.13 Here in Khuzistan, not far from Susa. The - Gondi-Sapor they established the fa- hammedans captured the city in 638, in mous school where some of their co-reli- the reign of , the second Khalif. gionists had previously, about 350, made By the thirteenth century, however, it that city the See of a bishop of the Nes- had almost disappeared. There is no torian Church.14 Kobad was friendly to trace of the city left at present except them because of help the Nestorians had vague mounds marking the former walls given him in his escape to the Turks be- and buildings, and the site is partly oc- fore regaining his .15 (See Fig. 3.) cupied by a small village called Shaha- Attention must be given to the his- bad. Sir Henry Rawlinson16 and Lay- tory of this city. It was founded in 260 ard17 are two of the last travelers to a .d . by Sapor 1, of Ardashir Baba- describe the present remains of this city khan, founder of the Sassanian Dynasty of glorious record. of Persia, soon after his defeat and cap- The Persian school of medicine in Gondi-Sapor, always under Nestorian to a village for the needed seasoning. inspiration and management, flourished Nushirwan said, “Be sure that you ob- from the time of Nushirwan, 530 a .d ., tain the salt at a price, that a bad cus- Kobad’s successor, until at least the end tom be not established and the village of the tenth century, when Baghdad re- be not ruined.” They asked, “What loss placed it as the center of medical teach- could come from such a trifle?” He re- ing. The greatest impetus to the school plied, “The origin of tyranny in the was given by the most famous of the world was small at first; others have Sassanian kings, Nushirwan, called added to it, till it has reached its present Adil, or the Just. (See Fig. 4.) He not state.” Stanzas: 1. If the King were to only gave the Nestorian teachers in the eat one apple from the orchard of a school every advantage and encourage- subject, his slaves would pluck up the ment, but he increased the prestige of tree by its roots. 2. For five eggs which the institution by welcoming to it the the Sultan might deem lawful plunder, Greek Neo-Platonists from the school of his army would run through a thousand , when it was closed in 529 a .d . fowls with spits. It became, during Nushirwan’s long To return to the Great School: Oppo- reign of forty-eight years, the greatest site it was built the famous hospital, the intellectual center of the time. Within Bimaristan, a Persian name used sub- its walls Greek, Jewish, Nestorian, Per- sequently for all the great hospitals in sian and Hindu thought and experience Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo which were freely exchanged, but the Nesto- the Arabs copied from this model in rian teachers were the most prominent Gondi-Sapor. Describing this hospital and the teaching was done largely in Ibn-al-Qifti19 says: Syriac or Aramaic, because the texts of They [the physicians] made rapid prog- the Greeks, Persians, Jews and ress in the science, developed new methods were translations in that language. It in the treatment of disease along pharma- was during Nushirwan’s long reign that cological lines, to the point that their Pahlawi literature reached its zenith. therapy was judged to that of He ordered the historical annals of Per- the Greeks and the Hindus. Furthermore sia to be compiled and from the material these physicians adopted the scientific collected the greatest Persian epic was methods of other peoples and modified composed by the poet Firdausi at the them by their own discoveries. They end of the tenth century. Under the elaborated medical laws and recorded the great king’s aegis Persian translations work that had been developed. were made of Plato and Aristotle. In the twentieth year of Nushirwan’s Nushirwan became the hero of story reign the physicians of Gondi-Sapor con- and song by later historians and poets vened by order of the sovereign to discuss who lauded his wisdom and justice, for diversified scientific subjects. Their de- he is always spoken of as Nushirwan bates were recorded. This memorable seance was presided over by Gibrail Do- Adil, the Just. In Sâdi’s Gulistan18 there rostbad, the special physician to the King, is a simple tale, in Persian, typical of his assisted by the Sofistai and their colleagues, justice, one of the many in the Book of by Yohanna and a large number of other Kings. It reads: They have related that physicians. at a hunting ground they were roasting During several centuries the School and the game for Nushirwan, the Just, but Bimaristan of Gondi-Sapor held first place there was no salt. A slave was dispatched in the world of Medicine and Science. It was from among their students that Per- the Prophet and his succeeding Khalifs. sia, and Syria recruited their physi- From this Nestorian community, edu- cians. Pupils from all nationalities gath- cated and wise in the medical science of ered in Gondi-Sapor for instruction. that era above all others, the nascent Furthermore the Islamic conquerors did and virile Arabs eagerly sought their not hesitate to call into service the phy- earliest and their later training in Greek sicians trained in this school. and Galenic medicine, and rekindled The Prophet and the first Khalifs that torch of ancient learning with the were treated by Harith Ibn Kalada el whirlwind of their newly awakened in- Thakafi and by his son Nadr Ibn Ha- terest and enthusiasm for learning. rith, graduates of Gondi-Sapor. The From Gondi-Sapor went a long line Ummayad Khalifs were cared for by Ibn of distinguished physicians: the famous Uthâl, a Christian practitioner of family of the Bakhtishüs, the Mëshus or Gondi-Sapor, and other diplomates of the Mesué, to mention only two re- that school. The trust confided in the nowned families, to Baghdad, to Da- school of Gondi-Sapor and its graduates mascus, to Cairo where they organized was deserved primarily for its eminence famous hospitals, modeled after the and the renown of the faculty and the great Bimaristan of that Persian city. ability of its graduates. But there was For a most interesting account of these one factor, little appreciated in the com- Bimaristans, their buildings, their ing of the Nestorians to the Persian teaching clinics with In and Out Patient school, and that had to do with the ex- communication and banishment of the buildings with medical, surgical, ortho- Nestorians from the orthodox pedic and ophthalmological services, all church. The denial of the Motherhood copies of the famous hospital in Gondi- of God in Mary appealed to both the Sapor, the reader is recommended to Persian Zoroastrians and to the later study the monograph of Dr. Ahmed conquerors, the Mohammedans, but Issa Bey20 on the hospitals of the Islamic especially the latter. In what is almost period. It is a most surprising and illu- the last Sura of the Qu’ran, the one hun- minating exposition and proof that Ara- dred and twelfth, entitled “The Unity,” bian medicine made full use of the lore four short sentences sum up the denial handed down through the Nestorians. of the Trinity and of the Virgin Birth: In the preparation of this paper the au- 1. Say, He , is one. thor has consulted original sources in 2. Allah is He on whom all depend. Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Persian, but he 3. He begets not, nor is he begotten. wishes to express his indebtedness to Sar- 4. And none else is like unto Him. ton’s “Introduction to the History of Sci- ence,” Carter’s “Invention of Printing in It was the third line of this Sura, in China,” Ahmed Issa Bey’s “Histoire des the rich melodious Arabic “Lam Yalid Bimaristans,” and especially to Professor wa lam Yulad” which set the Nestorians Philip K. Hitti of Princeton University for apart from other Christian and his many suggestions ancl constructive gave them special favor in the eyes of criticism.

Ref ere nces

1. Sart on , G. Introduction to the History of 3. Barh ebraeu s . Quoted by Assemani Bib- Science. 1927, 1:15. lioth. Orient., Rome, 1728, Vol. 3 pt. 11, 2. Euse bius . Excerpta, p. 179. p. 425. (Assemani was a Meronite, from Lebanon, who lived in the eight- 12. Ass ema ni . Biblioth. Orientalis. 1:352; 3: eenth century, and was called to Rome. pt. II, 429; Patr. Orient., 7: 128. He introduced Syriac literature to the 13. Sart on , G. Introduction to the History Catholic scholars in the Vatican. Bar- of Science. 1927, 1:400; 423; 425. hebraeus was the great Assyrian his- 14. Ass emani . Biblioth. Orientalis. 2:398; torian of the thirteenth century. 4:43; 44; 421. 4. Noë ld ek e . In Gutschmid’s Memoire en- 15. Chronique de Seert: Patr. Orient., 7:128. titled: Untersuchungen über die Ge- 16. Rawli nson , H. Notes on a march from schichte des Königskichs Osrhoëne. Zohab through Khuzistan to Kerman- 5. Duv al . Histoire d’Edesse. J. Asiatique, shah in the year 1836. J. Roy. Geog. 8th s., Vol. 18. Soc., 9:71-72. 6. Euseb ius . The Legend of Abgar. His- 17. Layard , A. H. A description of the prov- toires Ecclesiastiques. I, chap. 13. ince of Khuzistan. J. Roy. Geog. Soc., 7. Cart er , T. F. The Invention of Printing 16:86. in China and Its Spread Westward. Co- 18. Sheikh Sâdi . Gulistan. Book I, Tale xx. lumbia Univ. Press, 1925. 19. Ibn -al -Qift i. Tâ rikh al-Hukama, p. 148. 8. Lauf er , B. Table of Contents, Sino- Quoted by Ahmed Issa Bey (cf. ref. 20). Iranica. Chicago, 1919. 20. Ahme d Iss a Bey . Histoires des Bimaris- 9. Ass eman i. Biblioth. Orientalis. I, 406. tans â l’Époque Islamique. Cairo, 1928. 10. Sar to n , G. E. Introduction to the His- Discourse prononcé au Congrès Inter- tory of Science. 1927, 1:477. national de Medecine Tropicale et 11. Caru s , P. The Nestorian Monument. d’Hygiène, tenu au Caire, Décembre, Chicago Open Court Publ., 1919; also 1928. Von Holm , F. My Nestorian Adven- ture in China.