Wasn’t Al-Quanun dominating medical education and practice in Europe and Asia for centuries.
Believe me, even after ten centuries, the achievements of Islamic medicine look amazingly modern.
Al-Quanun (Canon), containing over a million words, described complete studies of physiology, pathology and hygiene. He specifically discourseed on breast cancer, poisons, diseases of the skin, rabies, insomnia, childbirth and the use of obstetrical forceps, meningitis, amnesia, stomach ulcers, tuberculosis as a contagious disease, facial tics, phlebotomy, tumors, kidney diseases and geriatric care.
The author Avicenna was the first physician to observe the communicability of diseases such as tuberculosis and dysentery, the spread of diseases through water, the properties and preparation of alcohol and sulfuric acid, the genetic nature of certain conditions, and the sweet taste of urine in those with diabetes.
Ibn Sina recognized ‘physiological psychology’ in treating illnesses involving emotions. From the clinical perspective, Ibn Sina developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings, which has been viewed as anticipating the word association test of Jung. He is said to have treated a terribly ill patient by feeling the patient’s pulse and reciting aloud to him the names of provinces, districts, towns, streets and people. By noticing how the patient’s pulse quickened when names were mentioned, Ibn Sina deduced that the patient was in love with a girl whose home Ibn Sina was able to locate by the digital examination. The man took Ibn Sina’s advice, married the girl, and recovered from his illness.
To enlighten Avicenna was Ibn Sina he is among the Muslim scholars and philosophers who diverted their legacy to the West and awakened Europe to the dawn of Renaissance.
Ibn Sina (973-1037) was a sort of universal genius, known first as a physician. To his works on medicine he afterward added religious tracts, poems, works on philosophy, on logic, as physics, on mathematics, and on astronomy. He was also a statesman and a soldier
This image is an early-15th-century Persian copy of the opening page of Book Four of Ibn Sina's (Avicenna) Canon of Medicine, written in the 11th century, parts of which were used in European medical schools as late as the 19th century.
The Reynolds collection has a copy of the first Arabic edition of Al-Qanun to appear in the West, published in Rome in 1593 (Sarton 711). Also, the Reynolds Library holds a Latin translation from 1556, Liber canonis, de medicines cordialibus, et cantica. This is an edition of the original Latin translation of the Canon by Gerard of Cremona (1147-1187).
1 comment:
So well and nice posting , I like it.
Bathmate
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