On account of his zeal for study Rhazes was known as the "Experimentator." The first of the Arabians, known throughout the Middle Ages as the Prince, the rival, indeed, of Galen, was the Persian Ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna, one of the greatest names in the history of medicine.
Born about 980 A.D.in the province of Khorasan, near Bokhara, he has left a brief autobiography from which we learn something of his early years.

He could repeat the Koran by heart when ten years old, and at twelve he had disputed in law and in logic.

So that he found medicine was an easy subject, not hard and thorny like mathematics and metaphysics! He worked night and day, and could solve problems in his dreams.

"When I found a difficulty," he says, "I referred to my notes and prayed to the Creator.

At night, when weak or sleepy, I strengthened myself with a glass of wine."(12) He was a voluminous writer to whom scores of books are attributed, and he is the author of the most famous medical text-book ever written.