Islamic Medicine

• Islamic Medicine


  In the medieval period, Islamic medicine was miles ahead of European medicine. Islamic ideas eventually made their way to Europe - including knowledge of the all-important Galen and Hippocrates
• Islamic doctors kept Classical Knowledge alive
• While a lot of medical knowledge was lost in the West after the fall of the Roman Empire, medical ideas like the Four Humours and treatment by opposites were kept alive by Islamic scholars
• In the 9th century, Hunain ibn Ishaq (also known by his Latin name Johannitius)


  1. Travelled from Baghdad to Byzantium

  2. Collected Greek medical texts

  3. Translated these into Arabic
• Avicenna (or Ibn Sina)


  A Persian who lived from around AD 980-1037
• Avicenna wrote the 'Canon of Medicine', which brought together the ideas of Galen and Hippocrates, and was the most important way that classical ideas got back into Western Europe
• This work and other Islamic texts were translated into Latin in Spain (which was partly Christian and partly Islamic) or Italy
• The Crusades also made Europeans aware of the scientific knowledge of Islamic doctors
• The Crusades


  A series of wars fought by Christian Europeans against Muslims. They were an ultimately unsuccessful attempt to retake Jerusalem and the surrounding areas associated with the early history of Christianity.
• Comment and Analysis - Islamic doctors kept Classical Knowledge alive


  Islamic medicine was generally more rational and evidence-based than European medicine, partly due to their knowledge of classical (Ancient Greek and Roman) medical texts
• Albucasis (or Abu al-Qasim)


  Wrote a well thought-out book describing amputations, the removal of bladder stones and dental surgery, as well as methods for handling fractures, dislocations and the stitching of wounds
• Avenzoar (or Ibn Zuhr)


  Described the parasite that causes scabies and began to question the reliability of Galen
• Ibn al-Nafis


  Questioned Galen's ideas, suggested (correctly) that blood flows from one side of the heart to the other via the lungs and doesn't cross the septum, his work wasn't recognised in the West until the 20th century
• Islamic doctors made several New Discoveries
• Albucasis (or Abu al-Qasim) was born


  c.AD 936
• Avenzoar (or Ibn Zuhr) lived


  12th century
• Ibn al-Nafis lived


  13th century
• Comment and Analysis - Islamic doctors made several New Discoveries


  In the Islamic world, as in Western Europe, religion strongly influenced the development of medicine. For example, Islam, like Christianity, prohibited dissection
• New Discoveries


  The autobiography of Usama ibn Munqidh, a 12th century Muslim doctor, suggests the difference between Islamic and European medicine. Usama describes how he treated a knight with a sore on his leg by using a poultice, and a woman who was 'feeble-minded' by advising a new diet. Then a French doctor arrived and claimed Usama knew nothing. He cut off the knight's leg with an axe, and cut the woman's head with a razor and rubbed the skull with salt. Both patients died.
• Alchemy helped to develop New Drugs


  . Alchemy was the attempt to turn base (ordinary) metals into gold and to discover the elixir of eternal lifee

  . Alchemy traces its origins back to the Egyptians and it was preserved in the Islamic world

  . Unlike modern chemistry, much superstition was included - an unsuccessful experiment was as likely to be blamed on the position of the stars or the spiritual purity of the alchemist as anything else

  . Even so, Islamic alchemists invented useful techniques such as distillation and sublimation, and prepared drugs such as laudanum, benzoin and camphor