Aaron of AlexandriaHe was a Jewish physician and presbyter in the 7th century, who supposed to have written 30 books on medicine in Syrian, many now lost.
Most of his remaining works compiled, from Greek, were called the Pandects of Aaron and were translated into Arabic by the Syrian Jew, Maserjawaihi, in AD 683. Maserjawaihi, also a Syrian Jew and a physician in the reign of the Califah Marwan.
Some of Aaron’s work was cited by the Arabian physician, Rhazes (850-932) who mentioned Aaron as one of the first to describe smallpox and measles, which were brought into Egypt following the conquest by the Arabians in AD 640.
In the Pandects of Aaron, Aaron clearly described the small pox an the measles, with pathological symptoms and is the first author that mentioned there two remarkable diseases which probably first appeared and were taken notice at Alexandria in Egypt. This happened soon after Arabians made themselves master of that city, in AD 640, in the reign of Omar Al-Khatab, the second successor to the prophet Muhammad.
The first three chapters of the first tract in Haly Abbas (930-994) famous book of Al-Kitabul-Maliki also contains some discussion on the writings of Aaron along with those of Hippocrates (460-377 BC), Galen (AD 129-200), Oribasius (325-403) and Paul of Aegina (625-690).
Aaron of Alexandria
