Islamic Civilization – ALI110 Session Two – March 14th, 2006 Islamic Contributions to Medicine

Medicine  The Holy Qur’an has a verse which sums up all of medicine: Eat, drink, and do not be extravagant. (7:31)  Hadith of the Holy Prophet (s) - For every disease there is a cure. - The stomach is the house of all diseases. - After certainty of faith, nothing better is given to man than good health.  Medicine is a science from which one learns the states of the human body with respect to what is healthy and what is not, in order to preserve good health when it exists and restore it when it is lacking. Ibne Sina

Teachings of the Holy Prophet (s) on Health  Personal hygiene such as regular bathing, cleanliness etc  Public sanitation  Water supplies should not be contaminated  Spitting in public places not allowed  Careful hand washing  Using water when going to the washroom  Clipping fingernails  Oral hygiene

Muslim Discoveries in Medicine Muslims were the first to devise and use the following:  painkillers and sedatives  antiseptics to cleanse wounds  sutures made from animal intestines and silk to sew up surgical cuts  surgical instruments such as knives, scalpels, probes, and hooks  tourniquets to stop bleeding

Muslim Hospitals The hospitals of Islam appear to have been built upon conditions which, from the point of view of hygiene, were highly efficient. They were enormous and air and water circulated in them freely. Muslim hospitals had the following outstanding features:  financed and supported by the government  clean, large, and airy buildings  separate wards for men and women  gentle treatment for the insane  botanical and vegetable gardens  mobile clinics and house calls  story tellers for relaxation

Muslim Hospitals A Description Within a spacious quadrangular enclosure four buildings rose around a courtyard adorned with arcades and cooled with fountains and brooks. There were separate wards for diverse diseases and for convalescents; laboratories, a dispensary, out-patient clinics, diet kitchens, baths, a library, a chapel, a lecture hall, and particularly pleasant accommodations for the insane. Treatment was given gratis to men and women, rich and poor, slave and free; and a sum of money was: disbursed to each convalescent on his departure, so that he need not at once return to work. The sleepless were provided with soft music, professional story-tellers, and perhaps books of history.’

Ibne Sina – Avicenna The Great Muslim Physician  He wrote more than 270 books on medicine.  His greatest work is al-Qanun fi al-Tibb, the Canon of Medicine. This is the most famous book in the history of medicine. It was translated into Latin and published more than 35 times. It was used as a textbook for more than 500 years in the West and is still referred to today.  He also wrote the Kitab ash-Shafaa’ , the Book of Healing, a scientific encyclopedia covering logic, natural sciences, psychology, geometry, astronomy, and arithmetic.

Ibne Sina was the first to emphasize the following:  importance of diet  influence of climate on health  effect of emotional health on physical health  contagious nature of diseases  importance of sleep for healing

Ar-Radhi : Rhazes  He wrote more than 184 different works on what he learned as a practicing doctor.  The book, Kitab al-Hawi (comprehensive Book) covered in twenty volumes every branch of medicine, and was used in Europe as a textbook for centuries  His book Treatise on Smallpox and Measles is a masterpiece of direct observation of these diseases. It is the first accurate study of infectious diseases available in the West.

The Circulatory System Ibne Nafis, a Syrian, was the first to state that blood circulated throughout the body. This contradicted the Greek theory of Galen who said that blood was manufactured in the liver and flowed back and forth between the right and left sides of the heart. The Western world credits William Harvey for discovering the circulatory system although Muslim drawings such as those above show that the Muslims knew about it hundreds of years before Harvey.

Surgery Az- Zahrawi, (Abulcasis) a Spanish Muslim physician, was the first to perform surgeries using appropriate tools and devices. He was the greatest Muslim surgeon, with European surgeons of his time coming to regard him as a greater authority than even Galen, the ancient world's acknowledged master.  He wrote the Method of Medicine, a voluminous collections of 30 volumes. The last and largest of these volumes is On Surgery, which was nothing less than the greatest achievement of medieval surgery. It was the first independent surgical treatise ever written.

This is a column at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine in Pennsylvania. What do you notice about it? Check out the following website for more information: www.ajuel.com/Lecom_Islam_Roots_Foundations.htm