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Medicine is that great humanity-sense specialty, that aims to help people get rid of their pains, or to have a better life quality. Nowadays, medicine is one of the most rapidly changing and developing branches. However, having a look the history of medicine is that nice Issue. Many Muslim doctors had an important role in modifying the history of medicine. In this page I present some examples. 

YAQUB IBN IS'HAQ AL-KINDI (ALKINDUS)  (800 - 873 C.E.)

Al-Kindi is known in the West as Alkindus. He was popularly known as the 'Philosopher of theArabs' in the Middle Ages. Cardano considered Al-Kindi as one of the twelve greatest minds of the Middle Ages. He is among a small group of Muslim scientists who made original contributions in many fields. Al-Kindi was a philosopher, astronomer, physician, mathematician, physicist, and geographer. He also was an expert in music.

Yaqub Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi was born at Kufa (present Iraq) in 800 C.E. His father worked for Khalifah (Caliph) Haroon al-Rashid. Al-Kindi spent his long career in Baghdad and was a contemporary of al-Mutawakkil, al-Mamun and al-Mu'tasim. He died in 873 C.E. during the reign of al-M'utamid.
Al-Kindi was the first physician who systematically determined the dosage for most drugs. It greatly helped in the development of dosage standards (prescription) for patients. In the field of Chemistry, Al-Kindi argued that base metals cannot be converted to precious metals and that chemical reactions cannot produce transformation of basic elements. He made important contributions to the Arabic system of numerals. In addition, he contributed to spherical geometry while assisting al-Khwarizmi in astronomical studies. Al-Kindi's original work provided the foundation for modern arithmetic. He also made original contributions to geometrical optics, a special field of Physics, and wrote a book on it. Several centuries later, Al-Kindi's work inspired Roger Bacon.

Al-Kindi researched on the scientific aspects of music. He stated that the various notes that combine to produce harmony have a specific pitch, and the degree of harmony depends on the frequency of notes. Further, he provided a method for the determination of pitch. Al-Kindi stated that when a sound is produced it generates waves in the air, which strike the eardrum.

Al-Kindi wrote more than two hundred forty books. Among them are sixteen books in Astronomy, twenty-two each in Medicine and Philosophy, twelve in Physics, thirty-two in Geometry, eleven in Arithmetic, nine in Logic, four on the number system, seven in Music and five in Psychology. In addition, he wrote monographs on astronomical instruments, tides, rocks and precious stones.

Gerard of Cremona translated many of his books into Latin. These books include ikhtiyarat al-Ayyam, al-Mosiqa, Risalah dar Tanjim, Ilahyat-e-Aristu, Mad-o-Jazr and Adviyah Murakkaba.

Al-Kindi's influence on the development of physics, mathematics, medicine, philosophy and music lasted for several centuries.
Prof. Zahoor

MOHAMMAD IBN ZAKARIYA AL-RAZI (864-930 C.E.)

Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya al-Razi (864-930 C.E.) was born at Ray, Iran. Initially, he was interested in music but later on he learnt medicine, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry and philosophy from a student of Hunayn Ibn Ishaq, who was well versed in the ancient Greek, Persian and Indian systems of medicine and other subjects. He also studied under Ali Ibn Rabban. The practical experience gained at the well-known Muqtadari Hospital helped him in his chosen profession of medicine. At an early age he gained eminence as an expert in medicine and alchemy, so that patients and students flocked to him from distant parts of Asia.

He was first placed in-charge of the first Royal Hospital at Ray, from where he soon moved to a similar position in Baghdad where he remained the head of its famous Muqtadari Hospital for along time. He moved from time to time to various cities, specially between Ray and Baghdad, but finally returned to Ray, where he died around 930 C.E. His name is commemorated in the Razi Institute near Tehran.

Razi was a Hakim, an alchemist and a philosopher. In medicine, his contribution was so significant that it can only be compared to that of Ibn Sina. Some of his works in medicine e.g. Kitab al-Mansoori, Al-Hawi, Kitab al-Mulooki and Kitab al-Judari wa al- Hasabah earned everlasting fame. Kitab al-Mansoori, which was translated into Latin in the 15th century C.E., comprised ten volumes and dealt exhaustively with Greco-Arab medicine. Some of its volumes were published separately in Europe. His al-Judari wal Hasabah was the first treatise on smallpox and  chicken-pox, and is largely based on Razi's original contribution: It was translated into various European languages. Through this treatise he became the first to draw clear comparisons between smallpox and chicken-pox. Al-Hawi was the largest medical encyclopaedia composed by then. It contained on each medical subject all important information that was available from Greek and Arab sources, and this was concluded by him by giving his own remarks based on his experience and views. A special feature of his medical system was that he greatly favoured cure through correct and
regulated food. This was combined with his emphasis on the influence of psychological factors on health. He also tried proposed remedies first on animals in order to evaluate in their effects and side effects. He was also an expert surgeon and was the first to use opium for anaesthesia.

In addition to being a physician, he compounded medicines and, in his later years, gave himself over to experimental and theoretical sciences. It seems possible that he developed his chemistry independently of Jabir Ibn Hayyan. He has portrayed in great detail several chemical reactions and also given full descriptions of and designs for about twenty instruments used in chemical investigations. His description of chemical knowledge is in plain and plausible language.
One of his books called Kitab-al-Asrar deals with the preparation of chemical materials and their utilization. Another one was translated into Latin under the name Liber Experi- mentorum, He went beyond his predecessors in dividing substances into plants, animals and minerals, thus in a way opening the way for inorganic and organic chemistry. By and large, this classification of the three kingdoms still holds. As a chemist, he was the first to produce sulfuric acid together with some other acids, and he also prepared alcohol by fermenting sweet products.

His contribution as a philosopher is also well known. The basic elements in his philosophical system are the creator, spirit, matter, space and time. He discusses their characteristics in detail and his concepts of space and time as constituting a continuum are outstanding.
His philosophical views were, however, criticised by a number of other Muslim scholars of the era.

He was a prolific author, who has left monumental treatises on numerous subjects. He has more than 200 outstanding scientific contributions to his credit, out of which about half deal with medicine and 21 concern alchemy. He also wrote on physics, mathematics, astronomy and optics, but these writings could not be preserved. A number of his books, including Jami-fi-al-Tib, Mansoori, al-Hawi, Kitab al-Jadari wa al-Hasabah, al-Malooki, Maqalah fi al- Hasat fi Kuli wa al-Mathana, Kitab al-Qalb, Kitab al-Mafasil, Kitab-al- 'Ilaj al-Ghoraba, Bar al-Sa'ah, and al-Taqseem wa al-Takhsir, have been published in various European languages. About 40 of his manuscripts are still extant in the museums and libraries of Iran, Paris, Britain, Rampur, and Bankipur. His contribution has greatly influenced the development of science, in general, and medicine, in particular.

El Zahrawi (Albucasis) - father of surgery

Almost a thousand years ago at a time when Spain (Andulesia) was part of the Islamic empire, there lived near the capital city of Cordoba one of the great, but now largely forgotten, pioneers of surgery. He was known as El Zahrawi, though in European languages his name is written in over a dozen different ways: Abulcases, Albucasis, Bulcasis, Bulcasim, Bulcari, Alzahawi, Ezzahrawi, Zahravius, Alcarani, Alsarani, Aicaravi, Alcaravius, Alsahrawi etc. El Zahrawi is believed to have been born in the city of El-Zahra, six miles northwest of Cordoba, sometime between 936 and 940. It was here that he lived, studied, taught and practised medicine and surgery until shortly before his death in about 1013, two years after the sacking of El-Zahra. Because El-Zahra was pillaged and destroyed, little is known about its illustrious son El Zahrawi. He was first mentioned by the Andalusian scholar Abu Muhammad bin Hazm (993-1064), who listed him among the great physician- surgeons of Moorish Spain. The first known biography of El Zahrawi, however, appeared in al-Humaydi's Jadhwat al-Muqtabis (On Andalusian Savants), completed six decades after El Zahrawi's death.
It is clear from El Zahrawi's life history and from his writings that he devoted his entire life and genius to the advancement of medicine as a whole and surgery in particular. El Zahrawi wrote a medical encyclopaedia spanning 30 volumes which included sections on surgery, medicine, orthopaedics, ophthalmology, pharmacology, nutrition etc. This book was known as At-Tasrif and contained data that El Zahrawi had accumulated during a career that spanned almost 50 years of training, teaching and practice. He apparently travelled very little but had wide experience in treating accident victims and war casualties.
In At-Tasrif, El Zahrawi expressed his concern about the welfare of his students whom he called "my children". He emphasised the importance of a good doctor patient relationship and took great care to ensure the safety of his patients and win their trust irrespective of their social status. El Zahrawi's clinical methods showed extreme foresight – he promoted the close observation of individual cases in order to establish the most accurate diagnosis and the best possible treatment. He insisted on compliance with ethical norms and warned against dubious practices adopted by some physicians for purposes of material gain.
He also cautioned against quacks who claimed surgical skills they did not possess.
At-Tasrif contains many original observations of historical interest. In it, El Zahrawi elaborates on the causes and symptoms of disease and theorises on the upbringing of children and youth and on the care of the aged and convalescent. In the section on pharmacology and therapeutics, he covers areas such as cardiac drugs, emetics, laxatives, cosmetology, dietetics, materia medica, weights and measures and drug substitution.
At-Tasrif was translated into Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century and alongside Avicenna's Canon, played a major role as a medical text in the universities of Europe from the 12th to the 17th century AD. Two of El Zahrawi's treatises deserve special mention. Firstly his 28th treatise, known in Latin as Liber servitoris de preeparatione medicinarum simplicium, describes chemical preparations, tablet making, filtering of extracts and related pharmaceutical techniques. This treatise was printed in Venice in 1471 by Nicolaus Jensen.
Abu al-Qasim Khalaf bin 'Abbas el-Zahrawi (940? - 1013 C.E.) Perhaps the most importance treatise is the one on surgery. This monumental work was the first in Arabic to treat surgery independently and in detail. It included many pictures of surgical instruments, most invented by El Zahrawi himself, and explanations of their use. El Zahrawi was the first medical author to provide illustrations of instruments used in surgery. There are approximately 200 such drawings ranging from a tongue depressor and a tooth extractor to a catheter and an elaborate obstetric device.

The variety of operations covered is amazing. In this treatise El Zahrawi discussed cauterisation, bloodletting, midwifery and obstetrics and the treatment of wounds. He described the exposure and division of the temporal artery to relieve certain types of headaches, diversion of urine into the rectum, reduction mammoplasty for excessively large breasts and the extraction of cataracts. He wrote extensively about injuries to bones and joints, even mentioning fractures of the nasal bones and of the vertebrae. In fact 'Kocher's method' for reducing a dislocated shoulder was described in At-Tasrif long before Kocher was born! El Zahrawi outlined the use of caustics in surgery, fully described tonsillectomy, tracheotomy and craniotomy- operations he had performed on a dead foetus. He explained how to use a hook to extract a polyp tiom the nose, how to use a bulb syringe he had invented for giving enemas to children and how to use a metallic bladder syringe and speculum to extract bladder stones.
El Zahrawi was the first to describethe so-called "Walcher position" in obstetrics; the first to depict dental arches, tongue depressors and lead catheters and the first to describe clearly the hereditary circumstances surrounding haemophilia. He also described ligaturing of blood vessels long before Ambroise Pare.
Once At-Tasrif was translated into Latin in the 12th century, El Zahrawi had a tremendous influence on surgery in the West. The French surgeon Guy de Chauliac in his 'Great Surgery', completed in about 1363, quoted At-Tasrif over 200 times. El Zahrawi was described by Pietro Argallata (died 1423) as "without doubt the chief of all surgeons". Jaques Delechamps (1513-1588), another French surgeon, made extensive use of At-Tasrif in his elaborate commentary, confirming the great prestige of El Zahrawi throughout the Middle Ages and up to the Renaissance. Page from a 1531 Latin translation by Peter Argellata of El Zahrawi's treatise on surgical and medical instruments.
by Dr. Monzur Ahmed

Ibn Sina ( Avicenna )

Arabic IBN SINA, in full ABU `ALI AL-HUSAYN IBN 'ABD ALLAH IBN SINA (b. 980, Bukhara, Iran--d. 1037, Hamadan), Iranian physician, the most famous and influential of the philosopher-scientists of Islam. He was particularly noted for his contributions in the fields of Aristotelian philosophy and medicine. He composed the Kitab ash-shifa` ("Book of Healing"), a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopaedia, and the Canon of Medicine,
which is among the most famous books in the history of medicine.

Avicenna, an ethnic Persian who spent his whole life in the eastern and central regions of Iran, received his earliest education in Bukhara under the direction of his father. Since
the house of his father was a meeting place for learned men, from his earliest childhood Avicenna was able to profit from the company of the outstanding masters of his day. A
precocious child with an exceptional memory that he retained throughout his life, he had memorized the Qur`an and much Arabic poetry by the age of 10. Thereafter, he
studied logic and metaphysics under teachers whom he soon outgrew and then spent the few years until he reached the age of 18 in his own self-education. He read avidly and
mastered Islamic law, then medicine, and finally metaphysics. Particularly helpful in his intellectual development was his gaining access to the rich royal library of the Samanids--the first great native dynasty that arose in Iran after the Arab conquest--as the result of his successful cure of the Samanid prince, Nuh ibn Mansur. By the time he
was 21 he was accomplished in all branches of formal learning and had already gained a wide reputation as an outstanding physician. His services were also sought as an
administrator, and for a while he even entered government service as a clerk.

But suddenly the whole pattern of his life changed. His father died; the Samanid house was defeated by Mahmud of Ghazna, the Turkish leader and legendary hero who established Ghaznavid rule in Khorasan (northeastern Iran and modern western Afghanistan); and Avicenna began a period of wandering and turmoil, which was to last to the end of his life with the exception of a few unusual intervals of tranquillity. Destiny had plunged Avicenna into one of the tumultuous periods of Iranian history, when new Turkish elements were replacing Iranian domination in Central Asia and local Iranian dynasties were trying to gain political independence from the 'Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad (in modern Iraq). But the power of concentration and the intellectual prowess of Avicenna was such that he was able to continue his intellectual work with remarkable consistency and continuity and was not at all influenced by the outward disturbances.

Avicenna wandered for a while in different cities of Khorasan and then left for the court of the Buyid princes, who were ruling over central Iran, first going to Rayy (near modern Tehran) and then to Qazvin, where as usual he made his livelihood as a physician. But in these cities also he found neither sufficient social and economic support nor the
necessary peace and calm to continue his work. He went, therefore, to Hamadan in west-central Iran, where Shams ad-Dawlah, another Buyid prince, was ruling. This journey
marked the beginning of a new phase in Avicenna's life. He became court physician and enjoyed the favour of the ruler to the extent that twice he was appointed vizier. As was the
order of the day, he also suffered political reactions and intrigues against him and was forced into hiding for some time; at one time he was even imprisoned.

This was the period when he began his two most famous works. Kitab ash-shifa` is probably the largest work of its kind ever written by one man. It treats of logic, the natural sciences, including psychology, the quadrivium (geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music), and metaphysics, but there is no real exposition of ethics or of politics. His thought in this work owes a great deal to Aristotle but also to other Greek influences and to Neoplatonism. His system rests on the conception of God as the necessary existent: in God alone essence, what he is, and existence, that he is, coincide. There is a gradual multiplication of beings through a timeless emanation from God as a result of his self-knowledge. The Canon of Medicine (al-Qanun fi at-tibb) is the most famous single book in the history of medicine in
both East and West. It is a systematic encyclopaedia based for the most part on the achievements of Greek physicians of the Roman imperial age and on other Arabic works and, to a lesser extent, on his own experience (his own clinical notes were lost during his journeys). Occupied during the day with his duties at court as both physician and administrator, Avicenna spent almost every night with his students composing these and other works and carrying out general philosophical and scientific discussions related to them.
These sessions were often combined with musical performances and gaiety and lasted until late hours of the night. Even in hiding and in prison he continued to write. The great physical strength of Avicenna enabled him to carry out a program that would have been unimaginable for a person of a feebler constitution.

The last phase of Avicenna's life began with his move to Isfahan (about 250 miles south of Tehran). In 1022 Shams ad-Dawlah died, and Avicenna, after a period of difficulty that included imprisonment, fled to Isfahan with a small entourage. In Isfahan, Avicenna was to spend the last 14 years of his life in relative peace. He was esteemed highly by 'Ala` ad-Dawlah, the ruler, and his court. Here he finished the two major works he began in Hamadan and wrote most of his nearly 200 treatises; he also composed the first work
on Aristotelian philosophy in the Persian language and the masterly summary of his "Book of Healing" called Kitab an-najat ("Book of Salvation"), written partly during the
military campaigns in which he had to accompany 'Ala` ad-Dawlah to the field of battle.

During this time he composed his last major philosophical opus and the most "personal" testament of his thought, Kitab al-isharat wa at-tanbihat ("Book of Directives and Remarks"). In this work he described the mystic's spiritual journey from the beginnings of faith to the final stage of direct and uninterrupted vision of God. Also in Isfahan, when an
authority on Arabic philology criticized him for his lack of mastery in the subject, he spent three years studying it and composed a vast work called Lisan al-'arab ("The Arabic
Language"), which remained in rough draft until his death.

Accompanying 'Ala` ad-Dawlah on a campaign, Avicenna fell ill and, despite his attempts to treat himself, died from colic and from exhaustion.

Besides fulfilling the role of the master of the Muslim Aristotelians, Avicenna also sought in later life to found an "Oriental philosophy" (al-hikmat al-mashriqiyah). Most of his works directly concerning this have been lost, but enough remains in some of his other works to give an indication of the direction he was following. He took the first steps upon a
path toward mystical theosophy that marked the direction that Islamic philosophy was to follow in the future, especially in Persia and the other eastern lands of Islam.

In the Western world, Avicenna's influence was felt, though no distinct school of "Latin Avicennism" can be discerned as can with Averroës, the great Spanish-Arabic philosopher.
Avicenna's "Book of Healing" was translated partially into Latin in the 12th century, and the complete Canon appeared in the same century. These translations and others spread the thought of Avicenna far and wide in the West. His thought, blended with that of St. Augustine, the Christian philosopher and theologian, was a basic ingredient in the thought of many of the medieval Scholastics, especially in the Franciscan schools. In medicine the Canon became the medical authority for several centuries, and Avicenna enjoyed an undisputed place of honour equalled only by the early Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen. In the East his dominating influence in medicine, philosophy, and theology has lasted over the ages and is still alive within the circles of Islamic thought. (S.H.N.)

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More information about this subject may be found at the site of International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine.

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