He also, like Oribasius, was a great compiler.

In the year 640, the Arabs took Alexandria, and for the third time a great library was destroyed in the "first city of the West." Shortly after the conquest of Egypt, Greek works were translated into Arabic, often through the medium of Syriac, particularly certain of Galen's books on medicine, and chemical writings, which appear to have laid the foundation of Arabian knowledge on this subject.
Through Alexandria then was one source: but the special development of the Greek science and of medicine took place in the ninth century under the Eastern Caliphates.

Let me quote here a couple of sentences from Leclerc (Tome I, pp.

91-92): "The world has but once witnessed so marvellous a spectacle as that presented by the Arabs in the ninth century.

This pastoral people, whose fanaticism had suddenly made them masters of half of the world, having once founded their empire, immediately set themselves to acquire that knowledge of the sciences which alone was lacking to their greatness.