Avenzoar, Abu Merwan Aedalmalek Een Zoar

, an eminent Arabian physician, flourished about the end of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. He was of noble descent, and born at Seville, the capital |

of Andalusia, where he exercised his profession with great reputation. His grandfather and father were both physicians. The large estate he inherited from his ancestors rendered it unnecessary for him to practise for gain, and he therefore took no fees from the poor, or from artificers, though he refused not the presents of princes and great men. His liberality extended even to his enemies; for which reason he used to say, that they hated him not for any fault of his, but rather out of envy. Dr. Freind thinks that he lived to the age of 135, that he began to practise at 40 or, as others say, at 20, and had the advantage of a. longer experience than almost any one ever had, as he enjoyed perfect health to his last hour. He left a son, known also by the name of Ebn Zohr, who followed his father’s profession, was in great favour with Al-Mansor emperor of Morocco, and wrote several treatises of physic. Avenzoar was contemporary with Averroes, who, according to Leo Africanus, heard the lectures of the former, and learned physic of him. Avenzoar, however, is reckoned by the generality of writers an empiric, although Dr. Freind observes that this character suits him less than any of the Arabians. He wrote a book on the “Method of preparing Medicines,” which is much esteemed. It was translated into Hebrew in the year 1280, and thence into Latin by Paravicius, and printed at Venice in 1490, fol. and again in 1553. ¹