This time the barbaric horde that laid waste a large part of Christendom were a people that became deeply appreciative of all that was best in Graeco-Roman civilization and of nothing more than of its sciences.

The cultivation of medicine was encouraged by the Arabs in a very special way.

Anyone wishing to follow the history of the medical profession among this remarkable people will find it admirably presented in Lucien Leclerc's "Histoire de la medecine arabe" (Paris, 1876).
An excellent account is also given in Freind's well-known "History of Medicine" (London, 1725-1726).

Here I can only indicate very briefly the course of the stream and its freightage.
With the rise of Christianity, Alexandria became a centre of bitter theological and political factions, the story of which haunts the memory of anyone who was so fortunate as to read in his youth Kingsley's "Hypatia." These centuries, with their potent influence of neoplatonism on Christianity, appear to have been sterile enough in medicine.

I have already referred to the late Greeks, Aetius and Alexander of Tralles.
The last of the Alexandrians was a remarkable man, Paul of AEgina, a great name in medicine and in surgery, who lived in the early part of the seventh century.