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Were the “Dark Ages” Really Dark?

Article · January 2003

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Syed Ziaur Rahman

Aligarh Muslim University
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[i
l,ij

lii DIRECTORY
FEATURE
rii 1. lnteruiews
1
4
J
ffi 2. Opinion Poll
7
13
3. Basic Fitness Guide for Beginners
ti 4. Medicine - A Historical Perspective
5. Seniorspeak
26
30
33
ti 6. Aligarh Movement Feature 43
7. lmpressions & Expressions 52
8. Career Capsule 56
9. Stamp Feature 65
10. College Report 66
11. Art Section 70

ARTICLES AND
1 . Wc Ha ve Proved it .. . 1 2. Bioterrorism - No orre is weak... 4
3. Were the'Dark Ages'... 7 4. An UtfilfilLed Pronise 11
5. Scurvy - The Origin of... 72 6. Brainwashing & How it... 13
7. The Wait 1.7 B. An Argunent for the Study... 1,9

fii 9. Smoking An Unr-recessary...

11. History of I N Medical...
22 10. Iawaharlal Nehru
25 72. Teach
24
2Z
13. Key to Happiness 28 14.JNMC-AsAnAutono...
li, 15. Forbidden Fnrit 33 16. The Swinging Pendulum...
30
34
17. Earth Divided 38 18. Fared ll/ell My Fair.
lt 19.
27
Aligarh Movement lts....
To Be a Doctor
40 20. My First Day...
45 22. \Nar or Peace
39
44
16
23. ADay in the College 48 24.If that's Life 51
lir 25. Abiocor - The Artificial... 52 26. ,4s Long As The Heart. .. 57
27. T he Srrrouldering Inferno 58 28. Lt. Col. Dr. Sir Ziauddin 60
29. Etemity 61 30. The Begrnning
lii 31.. Gro* Up 64 32. Let's Make Those Pickles!
62
65
33. Mother - A Celebrqtion 67 34. Doping in Sports 69
ff, 35. The Case of a Lost... 73 36. Mists of tl're Mind 77
37. IND - 7061717 79 38. The Downfall 87
39. My Aliga+h 88 40. Those Few Seconds 90
l,fl 41.. Ode to Mv Mother 92

[i\t
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GREY MATTER S. Ziaur Rahman 7

Were the "f)ark Ages"

Really fDark?
Who Fovided liUht
to the turorc of
the'[ark AUes'?
As we delve
deercr into this
question, an
examDle of
intellectual
corru[tion comes
to liUht. Egypt, Babytonia, Phoenicia and J-udaeh were the most
ancie# centers of learning and cutture from where the Greeks
aenvea their inspiration. Greek wisdom ftowed to the
East
Hettenism to
throrgh the Syrian Christian translators who passed
promoted
the ls-tamic wortd. Mustims of the medieval age .the
Abbasid catiph
i"tti"g up of medicat schoots and hospitats. The
Huiunlutjnushid used the Sasanian academy of Jundishapur
in
southwestern lran as his modet when he founded his own
h;;ii"il;Baghdad. Hospitats were soon estabtished throughout
tn"'empire. il't"y were staffed by dozen of speciatists' even
From
onvslotoeists, ocrtirts and surgeons to bone-setters' they
il1";;;:i;i-;;tdt for the me-ntattv itt and separate wings for
,* i"a women. These hospitats were incorporated into large
charitabte foundations and wer
made by the Powerfut and the
one founded bY Mamtuk Sutta
traveting ctinics and disPensa
areas and Prisoners. Amon
ohitosoohers who diverted th'
awakened Europe to the dawn
I ;;;,'il;;r;J tun-zatati" Razi, lbn Havtham' lbn sina'..lsmail
Dr S Ziaur
Rahman is a
Leclurer in the
Dept of
Pharmaeolgy",
JNA4C, AMU prominent m

GREY MAIER
Muhammad lbn Zakaria
Razi(850-925): Named after the
town where he was born(Rai, near
modern Teheran), Razi or Rhazes was
one of the greatest figures in Arabian
medicine" His most noteworthy
contributions were the distinction
between smatl pox and meastes and
the use of anima[ gut in sutures. ln a
treatise on anatomy, he described
the recurrent [aryngeaI nerye. He
practiced in the town of his birth and
later on in Baghdad. lt is said that
when he was asked to choose a site
for the hospital there, he hung pieces
of meat at various points in the city,
and selected the ptace .where the
putrefaction was most detayed.
lbn-al- Haytham (965-1039): He
is known as the father of optics. He
explained how human vision takes
ptace by integrating physicat,
mathematica[, experimentat,
physiologicat and psychological
considerations. His treatise had an
enormous impact on a[[ later schotars
of optics, both in the Muslim wortd
and through a medievat Latin
translation, in the West.
lbn Sina(980-1037):Known in
the West as Avicenna, he was the
greatest writer on medical subjects.
At- Qanoon fit tibb, (Canon of
Medicine) which consists of five
votumes, is arguably the most
influentia[ work in the history of
Medicine. He synthesized Aristottean
and later Greek theories with his
original views, and his Canon of
Medicine became the most famous
book on medicine in the East and
West, transtated at least 87 times.
He gave the terms vermis and
tailed nucteus from which was
derived the term caudate nucteus
denoting a part of the human brain.
He described meningitis, which he
-----
S. Ziaur Rahman 8
considered to be an inflammation or
tumour of the envelopes of the brain,
and distinguished it from secondary
meningism. He knew about the pupit
and its movement, of six motor
muscles for the globe, and of central
and peripheral types of facial
weakness. lbn Sina defined apoptexy
as "toss of mclvement foltowing an
occlusion seated within the brain in
those ptaces traversed by the neryous
inftux of sensibitity and motoricity".
lsmail Jorjani: He is considered
as the most distinguished physician
and scholar by atl Persian writers. His
precious masterpieces proved to be a
tink in the progress of the knowtedge
of medicine. Though he betopged to
lran, he settled down in Khwarazm
(Uzbekistan) in 504 AH I 1110 AD and
got attached to the court of its ruter
Qutab a[- Deen Khwarazm Shah. He
wrote several books on medicine in
the.f,ersian language, the prominent
among them are Aghrad-e-Tibb (Aims
.of Medicine), Yadgar or the
rremembrance on Materia Medica and
Pharmacy. .,.
,
' At Berunf: At Beruni was the
contemporary of lbn Sina. Before
him, treatment rnodatities were non-
invasive, though some attempts were
made for the advancement of
surgery. At Beruni recognized that
there were some conditions where
surgery was the onty option. He
introduced caesarean section for
difficutt labour. His work on Materia
Medica, Kitdb at Saidrah, is one of
the important books in the fietd of
Pharmacology.
Abu Qasim Zuhrawi (936-1013):
Abut Qasim Zuhrawi (Abucasis) was a
distinguished Spanish-Arabian
surgeon. Born in Cordoba, Spain, he
apparently was the first to describe
the treatment of deformities of the

mouth and dental arches. ln addition,
he recommended the use of artificiat
teeth, which at that time were made
of cow bone.
More than anyone else, Abut
Qasim hetped raise the status of
Surgery in Christian Europe. He was
the court physician to Catiph Abdur
Rahman lll \912-961) and also the
greatest surgeon of the Arabian
school. As, such, his treatise on
surgery hetd the same authority as
lbn Sina's Canon of Medicine.
His most famous work al-Tasrif
or'Co[lection' - a comprehensive
study devoted to the medicine and
surgery - was transtated into Latin
and Hebrew. This 'Cotlection, has
separate chapter on
Otorhinotaryngology. His surgical
work was the [eading textbook in
Europe for about 500 years. His
descriptions were lucid, and his work
contained remarkable i[[ustrations of
surgicaI instruments including one
device for extracting tooth roots and
another for straightening teeth. His
writing inctuded personal
'observations and statements that
reveated his famitiarity with the
ancient texts and his wisdom and skitt
as a practitioner.
The work itsetf contains three
books. ln Book l, Abu[ easim
discussed cautery and recommended
its use not only in surgical disorders
but also in nose bleeds, apoplexy,
arteriaI haemorrhage and epitepsy.
He used silk thread in suturing
arteriaI injury. He recommended
hotding of edges of the wound
together and apptying large ants to
the wounds. ln Book ll, he described
gther operations that were in use,
such as trephining and procedures for
fistula, giotre and aneurysm. ln Book
-|
S. Ziaur Rahman
lll, he discussed fractures and
distocations including fractures of the
petvis and mentioned paralysis in
fracture of the spinaI column. From
his mutti-disciptinary works, one can
say that Abut Qasim was not onty a
generaI surgeon but atso a dental
surgeon, ENT surgeon and
orthopaedician.
lbn Zuhr (Avenzoar- 1161 AD):
lbn Zuhr of Sevitte (Spain) is famous
for his original work on diet and
heatth. He showed that nature itself
worked in every human body and is
capabte of curing many diseases
without any medication. His book, A[
Taiser is one of the most important
works.
a
lbn Nafis (d. 1288): The eartiest
discovery of blood circutatory system
was done by lbn Nafis and not
Wittiam Harvey as is the common
knowtedge. lbn Nafis discovered the
minor, or pulmonary circutation of
btood in the 13th century AD, 4OO
years before Harvey's work. The
discovery of the pulmonary
circutation of btood, is part of the
generaI circutation mechanism, and it
may thus rightty be considered as one
of the original contributions of
Medieval civilization to the realms of
science.
lbn Nafis atso demotished the
1000 year otd theory of the
penetrabitity of the interventricutar
septum of the heart, which
erroneousty theorized that the btood
traveted directty from the right
ventricle to the teft through the
septum. This theory was formulated
by ancient Greek physician Galen
(Claudius Gatenus- 129 to 199 AD)
who had even suggested that there
were invisibte pores in the septum '
which al[owed the passage of blood
from the right ventricle to the teft.
 GREY MAITER S. Ziaur Rahman l0

At a time when Galen was regarded lbn Rushd (Averrose 1121'-

as the supreme and unquestionabte 1198): He was one of the Pioneers
authority on the subject, lbn Nafis, of various aspects of anatomY. He
with the courage of a true scientist, was atso a great phrlosoPher who
questioned, reviewed, refuted and stated, "anyone who studies anatomy
rejected Galen's theory and Paved witt increase his f aith in the
way for further development on the omnipotence and oneness of God, the
topic. Atmighty".

t tu I A I r U il D A

CELLULAR MEDICINE
The medicol f roternity is in constont seorch of newer
techniques in their effort to free the humon kind of diseose ond
infirmity. lnfections ore proving to be on ever growing problem
requiring constont innovotion by scientists. An ideo that has been
toking rounds in my grey motter is here for the august reodership of
Grey l{iatter to reod, think ond evoluote ond ...implement!

When the antigen (microbe) is introduced inlo the body it sets

off the production of B-cetls which produce antibodies. These B-cetts
can be grown in vitro. The probtem arises when the B-cetls are given
to a different person as it causes reaction owing to its non-self nature
as they have antigen on their surface, which is different in different
Persons.

This probtem can be overcome by using the stem-cetl

technotogy. Macrophages and B-celts kitt the microorganisms that
invade our body to enter the btood. From an infected person, we can
cutture macrophages and B-ce[[s, which have specific action on a

great use in patients of various infections inctuding AIDS'

Syed Shariq Naeem

MBBS (2001 barch)
JNMC, AMU

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