Submitted: 16 April 1997 Lawrence I. Conrad Historian of Near Eastern Medicine Wellcome Institute 183 Euston Road London NW1 2BE UK Phones: 0171 611-8560 FAX: 0171 611-8562 Email: lconrad@wellcome.ac.uk Late antiquity, early Islam, Umayyad Caliphate, Abbasid Caliphate, Syria, Egypt, Iraq, history of medicine, historiography, social history, cultural history, economic history, Arabic literature, Syriac literature, Christian communities, Arab conquests.