Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World

Editor in Chief Richard C. Martin

Copyright 2004 Macmillan

***direct quotes***

445- the Islamic golden age was the later half of the 7th century through the 13th century
446- the Koran itself contains limited specific medical text
446- the hadith interpretations contain rich and detailed material on preventive and
curative medicine, dietetics, and spiritual health.

446- when nestorius, the patriarch of Byzantium, and his followers were forced out of
Europe a large pool of intellectuals moved to the middle east, and many to jud-e shapur, a
city in what is now southwestern iran that was already home to a thriving intellectual
community
446- when Justinian I expelled heathen philosophers from Athens, the Hellenic medical
tradition based on Galen and others was transplanted to the fertile soil of jund-e shapur
where it thrived amid a community of scholars who translated the Greek medical works
into Arabic

446- al-Razi born near what is now Tehran in middle of the 7th century. His written works
number in the hundreds. The largest which is a huge compilation of case studies and
notes edited and published by al-razis students after his death, has been called al-Hawa.
These work summarized essentially all of the medical writings preceeding al-razis time as
well as his own observations.
466- his most famous piece was a much shorter monograph in which he distinguished
small pox, chicken pox, and measles, this work translated into latin was called de
Pestilentia and formed the basis for much future work on these highly contagious
diseases

447- al-zahrawi lived from about 930-1013 and was known as the greatest sugeon of
islam. Zahrawi lived in the western caliphate near Cordoba and attended the university of
Cordoba. He is most famous for his command of analgesia… and the theory and pratice
of surgery

447- ibn sina lived just a bit later. He was born in Persia in what is now isfahan, iran. His
greatest medical work was the Qanun fi al-tibb, a five volume treatise based on Greek
knowledge. The qanun included discussions of almost all ailments imaginable, as well as
health promotion focusing on diet, the environment, and climate. Although he also wrote
in his native Persian, ibn sinas medical works were penned in Arabic, which facilitated
the reintroduction of scientific medicine in Europe as the dark ages fave way to the
European renaissance.

447- the Arabic text of ibn sinas qanun was published in rome in 1593, and was one of
the first Arabic books to be printed. The subsequent major scientific advancements that
came with claude bernards theory of the internal miliu, can leewenhoeks discovery of the
microscope, and other advances quickly pushed medicine to a secular, empirical basis and
the importance of the contributions of the arbic text was largely forgotten