Averroes, a-ver'o-ez, a Saracenic physician and philosopher. He lived about 1126-1198. He was born at Cordova, Spain, the capital city of western Mohammedanism. He came of an ancient and noble family. His father was the high priest and the chief judge of the city. Averroes is known chiefly as an admirer of Aristotle and Galen, to an examination of whose doctrines he devoted ten large volumes. He was called 'the soul of Aristotle." He left also a digest on medicine, in which, among points of interest, he calls attention to the freedom of smallpox patients from a second attack. This medical digest, really a textbook on medicine, is known as the Colliget. It is believed that Averroes understood neither Greek nor Syrian. He read Aristotle in an Arabic translation. Averroes left his writings in Arabic manuscript. They ruled supreme in medicine for several centuries. The University of Padua, Italy, was called the seat and center of "Averroist Aristotelianism." After the invention of printing the writings of this eminent man passed through many Latin editions. Some fifty editions were printed at Venice. Over a hundred editions were issued between 1480 and 1580. Manuscript copies in the Arabic of the greater part of his writings are preserved in the library of the Escurial and other libraries of Europe. Beautiful copies may be seen in the British Museum. Averroes flourished when Cordova was the Bagdad of the West. "He worshiped in great and magnificent mosques, attended schools and colleges of erudition and renown, consulted libraries vast in extent, rich and rare in quality; walked large hospitals, whose cases supplied ample illustrations of all the mortal ills to which our poor humanity is subject; and possessed every requisite qualification and influence to insure success and distinction in life." He was versed in the law of the Koran, and was a favorite of the Caliph Jusuf of Cordova. He served as cadi of Seville, of Cordova, and of Morocco; yet, being accused of heresy by a hundred credible witnesses, the caliph durst not otherwise than abandon him to ignominy. The caliph took away his office, confiscated his property, and banished him to dwell beyond the walls of the city among "dogs and Jews." The philosopher fled to Morocco, hoping to fare better among those who had seen him hold the honored post of cadi, but he was pursued to Fez, and was brought back to Cordova. He was condemned to stand on the steps of the mosque that the populace might spit in his face. He saved his life at the hands of the royal council only by recanting his alleged heresies. The very boys flung stones at him if he left the shelter of his hut to enter the city. This was the treatment accorded the most eminent scholar produced by western Islam. It affords some degree of satisfaction to know that, after the storm passed, the caliph was able to restore the upright judge to favor, and that upon the earnest entreaty of old friends at Fez, who contrasted his rectitude with the misrule of his successor, Averroes was reinstated as governor of Morocco and spent the later years of a long and laborious life in peace and honor. Impious and thrice-accursed Averroes. --Erasmus. Seated amid the philosophic train; . . . . . Hippocrates, Galenus, Avicen, and him who made That commentary vast, Averroes. --Dante, Inferno. He was evidently a man of dignity, rectitude, and nobility; a wise and humane judge; a devoted student; a profound scholar; and though surrounded by the luxuries of a royal court, yet simple, temperate, almost rigidly abstemious in his mode of life.--Geo. J. Fisher, Popular Science Monthly.