Medicine

Medicine

Published 2002

Medical science flourished in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages. The proven medical wealth of Muslim physicians, available in practice, encyclopedias, and manuscripts, enlightened Europe for five centuries.
Arnold and Guillaume, in “Legacy of Islam” on Islamic science and medicine, stated:

Looking back, we may say that Islamic medicine and science reflected the light of the Hellenic sun after its day had fled, shining like a moon. Islamic medicine and science illuminated the darkest night of the European Middle Ages; some bright stars lent their light, and that moon and stars alike faded at the dawn of a new day, the Renaissance. Because they helped guide and introduce that significant movement, they may reasonably claim they are still with us.

The Book of Water
Kitab Al-Ma’a (The Book of Water) seems like a strange title for the first known alphabetically arranged encyclopedia of medicine. It was recently discovered in Algeria and published in Oman. The author’s apparent reason for naming the book Kitab Al-Ma’a was that the word Al-Ma’a (the water) appears first in the book.

Drug Processing
The First Built Hospital, Baghdad
The author was Abu Mohammed Abdellah Ibn Mohammed Al-Azdi, known as Ibn Al-Thahabi (died 1033 AD, 466 AH), in Valencia, Muslim Spain. He was born in Suhar, Oman. He moved to Basra, then to Persia, where he studied under Al-Biruni and Ibn Sina.

Later he migrated to Bait Al-Maqdis (Jerusalem) and finally settled in Valencia. The manuscript contains about 900 pages. Under each letter of the alphabet, there are names of an illness, a medicine, a physiological process, or a treatment. This work is the first known alphabetical classification of medical terms.

In this encyclopedia, Ibn Al-Thahabi listed the names and added many original ideas about how human organs function. He explained the original idea of how vision takes place. He described seeing as a process in which an image passes through the eye’s pupil and strikes the optic nerves. The brain then unifies the two images into one and stores it in memory. This explanation resembled the vision theory of Ibn Al-Haitham, who died in 1040, just 33 years before Ibn Al-Thahabi. However, it is uncertain whether they met or knew of each other’s work.

The book treats a wide range of ailments and diseases, usually with herbal remedies. It also includes a course for treating psychological symptoms. The main thesis of his medication is that cure must start with controlled food and exercise. If symptoms persist, use specific medicines; if they persist, use medical compounds. Dr. Hadi Hamoudi edited the manuscript, and the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture, Oman, published it in 1996. by: FSTC Limited, Fri 17 January 2003.

What is Taught: The Italian Giovanni Morgagni is regarded as the father of pathology because he was the first to correctly describe the nature of the disease.
What Should be Taught: Islam’s surgeons were the first pathologists. They fully understood disease and described a variety of conditions in modern detail. Ibn Zuhr accurately described pleurisy, tuberculosis, and pericarditis.

Al Zahrawi
Az-Zahrawi accurately documented the pathology of hydrocephalus (water on the brain) and other congenital diseases. Ibn al-Quff and Ibn an-Nafs accurately described circulatory diseases. Other Muslim surgeons gave the first accurate descriptions of certain malignancies, including cancer of the stomach, bowel, and esophagus. These surgeons originated pathology, not Giovanni Morgagni.

What is Taught: Paul Ehrlich (19th century) is the originator of drug chemotherapy, which uses specific drugs to kill microbes.
What Should be Taught: Muslim physicians used a variety of specific substances to destroy microbes. They applied sulfur topically, specifically to kill the scabies mite. Ar-Razi (10th century) used mercurial compounds as topical antiseptics.
What is Taught: Arnau de Villanova, a Spanish alchemist, first produced purified alcohol through distillation in 1300 A.D.

What Should be Taught: Muslim chemists produced medicinal-grade alcohol through distillation as early as the 10th century and manufactured the first large-scale distillation devices for chemistry. They used alcohol as a solvent and antiseptic.
Taught: C.W. Long, an American, performed the first surgery under inhalation anesthesia in 1845.
What Should be Taught: Six hundred years before Long, Islamic Spain’s Az-Zahrawi and Ibn Zuhr, among other Muslim surgeons, performed hundreds of surgeries under inhalation anesthesia using narcotic-soaked sponges, which were placed over the face.
What is Taught: In the 16th century, Paracelsus introduced opium extracts as an anesthetic.

Medical Instruments
What Should be Taught: Muslim physicians introduced the anesthetic value of opium derivatives during the Middle Ages. Opium was originally used as an anesthetic agent by the Greeks. Paracelsus studied Ibn Sina’s works, and it is almost certain he derived this idea from them.
What is Taught: Humphrey Davy and Horace Wells invented modern anesthesia in the 19th century.
What Should be Taught: Muslim anesthetists discovered, mastered, and perfected modern anesthesia 900 years before Davy and Wells. They used oral and inhalant anesthetics.

What is Taught: The concept of quarantine was first developed in 1403. In Venice, a law was passed preventing strangers from entering the city until a certain waiting period had passed. If no signs of illness were found by then, they were allowed in.
What Should be Taught: The concept of quarantine was first introduced in the 7th century A.D. by Prophet Muhammad, who wisely warned against entering or leaving a region suffering from the plague. As early as the 10th century, Muslim physicians innovated isolation wards for individuals suffering from communicable diseases.
What is Taught: In 1865, British surgeon Joseph Lister introduced the scientific use of antiseptics in surgery.
What Should be Taught: As early as the 10th century, Muslim physicians and surgeons used purified alcohol as an antiseptic to treat wounds. Surgeons in Islamic Spain utilized special methods for maintaining antisepsis before and during surgery. They also originated specific protocols for maintaining hygiene during the post-operative period. Their success rate was so high that dignitaries throughout Europe came to Cordova, Spain, to be treated at what was comparable to the “Mayo Clinic” of the Middle Ages.

What is Taught: In 1545, the French surgeon Ambroise Paré advanced the scientific use of surgery. Before him, surgeons attempted to stop bleeding through the gruesome procedure of searing the wound with boiling oil. Pare stopped using boiling oil and began ligating arteries. He is considered the “father of rational surgery.” Pare was also one of the first Europeans to condemn such grotesque “surgical” procedures as trepanning (see reference #6, pg. 110).
What Should be Taught: Islamic Spain’s illustrious surgeon, az-Zahrawi (d. 1013), began ligating arteries with fine sutures over 500 years before Pare. He perfected the use of Catgut, a suture made from animal intestines. He also introduced cotton-and-wax plugs to stop bleeding wounds.

Europeans gained access to full details of his work through Latin translations. Despite this, barbers and herdsmen remained the primary practitioners of the “art” of surgery for nearly six centuries after az-Zahrawi’s death. He was a barber himself, though more skilled and conscientious than the average barber. Az-Zahrawi’s legacy includes dozens of books, including his most famous work: a 30-volume treatise on medicine and surgery. His books cover preventive medicine, nutrition, cosmetics, drug therapy, surgical technique, anesthesia, pre- and post-operative care, and include drawings of about 200 surgical devices, many of which he invented. The refined and scholarly az-Zahrawi must be regarded as the father and founder of rational surgery, not the uneducated Pare.

Medical Consultation
What is Taught: In the early 17th century, William Harvey discovered that blood circulates. He was the first to correctly describe how the heart, arteries, and veins function. Rome’s Galen presented erroneous ideas about the circulatory system, and Harvey was the first to show that the heart pumps blood throughout the body via the venous valves. As a result, he is regarded as the founder of human physiology.
What Should be Taught: In the 10th century, Islam’s ar-Razi wrote an in-depth treatise on the venous system, accurately describing the veins’ function and their valves. Ibn an-Nafs and Ibn al-Quff (13th century) provided comprehensive documentation that blood circulates and correctly described the heart’s physiology and valve function 300 years before Harvey. William Harvey graduated from Italy’s famous Padua University, where most of the curriculum was based on Ibn Sina’s and ar-Razi’s textbooks.

What is Taught: A German scholar published the first pharmacopeia (Book of Medicines) in 1542. According to the World Book Encyclopedia, pharmacology began in the 1900s as an offshoot of chemistry, based on analyzing crude plant materials. After isolating active ingredients from plants, chemists recognized their medicinal value.

Surgical Instruments
What Should be Taught: According to the eminent scholar of Arab history, Phillip Hitti, the Muslims, not the Greeks or Europeans, wrote the first “modern” pharmacopeia. Muslim physicians originated the science of Pharmacology during the 9th century. They developed it into a highly refined, precise science.

Muslim Chemists, Pharmacists, and Physicians produced thousands of drugs and/or crude herbal extracts one thousand years before Pharmacology’s supposed birth. In the 14th century, Ibn Baytar wrote a monumental pharmacopeia listing about 1,400 different drugs. Hundreds of other pharmacopeias were published during the Islamic Era. The German work likely derives from Ibn Baytar’s, which circulated widely in Europe.

What to Teach: Paracelsus, the Swiss-born physician, is credited with pioneering the scientific use of drugs to treat specific diseases in the 16th century. He is also credited with being the first to use practical experience as a key factor in patient treatment rather than relying exclusively on the ancients’ works.

What Should be Taught: Ar-Razi, Ibn Sina, al-Kindi, Ibn Rushd, az-Zahrawi, Ibn Zuhr, Ibn Baytar, Ibn al-Jazzar, Ibn Juljul, Ibn al-Quff, Ibn an-Nafs, al-Biruni, Ibn Sahl, and hundreds of other Muslim physicians mastered the science of drug therapy for the treatment of specific symptoms and diseases. In fact, they coined the term. The word “drug” is derived from Arabic.

They drew on extensive practical experience and careful observation. Muslim physicians were the first to criticize ancient medical theories and practices. Ar-Razi devoted an entire book to critiquing Galen’s anatomy. Paracelsus’s works are insignificant compared with the vast volumes of medical writing and original findings produced by the medical giants of Islam.

What is Taught: A German, Johann Weger, developed the first sound approach to treating disease in the 1500s.
What Should Be Taught: Harvard’s George Sarton says modern medicine is entirely an Islamic development and that, “setting the record straight,” Muslim physicians from the 9th through the 12th centuries were precise, scientific, rational, and sound in their approach.

Physical Medicine
Johann Weger was one of thousands of European physicians from the 15th through the 17th centuries who studied the medicine of ar-Razi and Ibn Sina. He contributed nothing original.

What is Taught: Philippe Pinel modernized treatment for the insane when he opened France’s first asylum for the insane in 1793.
What Should be Taught: As early as the 11th century, Islamic hospitals maintained special wards for the insane. They treated them kindly and presumed their disease was real at a time when the insane were routinely burned alive in Europe as witches and sorcerers. A curative approach was taken for mental illness, and, for the first time in history, the mentally ill were treated with supportive care, drugs, and psychotherapy.
Every major Islamic city maintained an insane asylum where patients were treated at no charge. In fact, the Islamic system for treating the insane excels compared to the current model, as it was more humane and highly effective.