History of Science &
Medicine
When the first man and woman descended from heaven, after sometime
they might have fallen ill and they might have tried some remedy to cure this
illness. Then Greeks came with elaborate philosophies but no hard work, no
meticulous observations, no experimentation and no verification. They did not
have the required patience, perseverance, and sweat and blood that the great
poet Iqbal has described as "Blood of Liver" without which no
substantial thing can be achieved. Working in the early hours of the morning
and getting in tune with the nature are prerequisite for the balance growth of
science and arts. The required selflessness, rising about flesh and materialism
is required to reach at the greatest heights. 1200 years ago when the Europe
was in utter darkness, the light was shining in the East. Quran, the last and
the final version of the divine message kindled the light! The Quran raised the
most backward nation to the top in all spheres of human life. It provided the
required milieu for hard and sincere work. It removed the rust from the hearts
and opened the eyes, ears and minds of the people. As a result great miracles
occurred. Rapid advancements were made in all spheres of life. Modern medicine
was born. Modern Surgery along with required inhalation anesthesia, antiseptics
and catgut sutures were all invented. Modern Chemistry and laboratory sciences
were born. Physics, astronomy, mathematics, algebra, geometry all came in to
being. An embryo was conceived with numerous facets. This embryo later became
an adult in Europe and other places. For many people in the West perhaps the
information may appear new and startling due to the fact that they were kept
blind due to religious and other prejudices against Islam and Muslims. It is
the irony the very people whom Muslims treated rather well and gave faculty
positions in the University Hospitals in Spain became very active in maligning
Islam through self created terrorism and false propaganda
Today we will introduce you to a great physician who along with some
his contemporary Muslim Physicians can be rightly regarded as father of modern
medicine.
Let us meet Ibn Sina whose original and superb work in the fields of
medicine, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy contributed a lot toward
starting the modern engine of science. He was born in 986 and physically passed
away in 1037. But his 51 years of life had been extended to time immemorial as
every doctor; every pharmacist and every patient of today is indebted to his
great work and is beneficiary of his planted trees.
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) started his education with Quran. At very early
age he had acquired good knowledge of Quran. Then he began studying philosophy
by reading various Greek, Muslim and other books on this subject. He had kind
help of Abu Abdallah Natili, a famous philosopher of the time. He studied
various drug and medicines afterwards. Based on his keen observation, hard
work, and superb organizational capacity and capability Ibn Seen had become a
famous physician by the age of 17 when he was fortunate in curing Nooh Ibn
Mansour, the king of Bukhhara, of an illness in which all the well-known
physicians had given up hope. On his recovery, the king wished to reward him,
but the young physician only desired permission to use his uniquely stocked
library.
On his father's death, Abu Ali left Bukhara and traveled to Jurjan
where Khawarizm shah welcomed him. There, he met his famous contemporary Abu
Raihan al-Biruni. Later he moved to Ray and then to Hamadan, where he wrote his
famous book al-Qanun fi al-Tibb.
From Hamadan, he moved to Isfahan, where he completed many of his
monumental writings. Nevertheless, he continued traveling and the excessive
mental exertion as well as political turmoil spoilt his health. Finally, he
returned to Hamadan where he died in 1037
The
Qanun is, of course, by far the largest, most famous and most important of Ibn
Sina's works. The main division is into five books;
1.
The first
deals with general principles
2.
The second
with simple drugs arranged alphabetically
3.
The third
with diseases of particular organs and members of the body from the head to the
foot
4.
The fourth
with diseases which though local in their inception spread to other parts of
the body, such as fevers
5.
The fifth
with compound medicines.
The Qanun
clearly distinguishes mediastinitis from pleurisy and recognizes the contagious
nature of tuberculosis of the lung and the spread of disease by water and soil.
It gives a scientific diagnosis of ankylostomiasis (hookworm) and attributes
the condition to an intestinal worm. The Qanun points out the importance of
dietetics, the influence of climate and environment on health and the surgical use
of oral anesthetics. Ibn Sina advised surgeons to treat cancer in its earliest
stages, ensuring the removal of all the diseased tissue.
Ibn Sina
noted the close relationship between emotions and the physical condition and
felt that music had a definite physical and psychological effect on patients.
Of the
many psychological disorders that he described in the Qanun, one is of unusual
interest: love sickness! Ibn Sina is reputed to have diagnosed this condition
in a Prince in Jurjan who lay sick and whose malady had baffled local doctors.
Ibn Sina noted a fluttering in the Prince's pulse when the address and name of
his beloved were mentioned. The great doctor had a simple remedy: unite the
sufferer with the beloved.
In the
last 30 years of the 15th century Qanun passed through 15 Latin editions and
one Hebrew. In recent years, a partial translation into English was made. From
the 12th-17th century, the Qanun served as the chief guide to Medical Science
in the West and is said to have influenced Leonardo da Vinci. In the words of
Dr. William Osler, the Qanun has remained "a medical bible for a longer
time than any other work".
The
Qanun fi at-Tibb surveyed the entire medical knowledge available from ancient
and Muslim sources. Due to its systematic approach, "formal perfection as
well as its intrinsic value, the Qanun superseded Razi's Hawi, Ali Ibn Abbas's
Maliki, and even the works of Galen, and remained supreme for six
centuries".
In
addition to bringing together the then available knowledge, the book is rich
with the author's original contribution. Here we find careful description of
skin troubles; of sexual diseases and perversions; of nervous ailments."
The
Qanun's materia medica in addition to describing pharmacological methods
considers some 760 drugs, with comments on their application and effectiveness.
He recommended the testing of a new drug on animals and humans prior to general
use. The book became the most authentic material medical of the era. He was
also the first to describe meningitis and made rich contributions to anatomy,
gynecology and child health.
His
philosophical encyclopedia Kitab ash- Shifa was a monumental work, embodying a
vast field of knowledge from philosophy to science. He classified the entire
field as follows:
Theoretical
knowledge of;
•
Physics
•
Mathematics
•
Metaphysics
Practical
knowledge of ;
.
Ethics
•
Economics
. Politics.
His
philosophy synthesizes Aristotelian tradition, Napoleonic influences and Muslim
theology.
Al-Qifti
states that Ibn Sina completed 21 major and 24 minor works on philosophy,
medicine, theology, geometry, astronomy and the like. Another source
(Brockelmann) attributes 99 books to Ibn Sina comprising 16 on medicine, 68 on
theology and metaphysics , 11 on astronomy and four on verse.
Most of
these were in Arabic; but in his native Persian he wrote a large manual on
philosophical science entitled Danish-naama-i-Alai and a small treatise on the
pulse.
Ibn Sina
also contributed to mathematics, physics, sound and other fields. He explained
the "casting out of nines" and its application to the verification of
squares and cubes. He made several astronomical observations, and devised a
contrivance similar to the venire, to increase the precision of instrumental
readings.
He
studied different forms of energy, heat, light and mechanical, and such
concepts as force, vacuum and infinity He concluded that if the perception of
light is due to the emission of some sort of particles by the luminous source,
the speed of light must be finite. He propounded an interconnection between
time and motion, and also made investigations on specific gravity and used an
air thermo- meter.
He
did not believe in the possibility of chemical transmutation because, in his
opinion, the metals differed in a fundamental sense. The views were radically
opposed to the prevailing at the time. His treatise on minerals was one of the
"main" sources of geology of the Christian encyclopaedist of the
thirteenth century. Besides Shifa his well-known treatises in philosophy are
An-Najat and Al-Isharat
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