HOW ISLAM CHANGED MEDICINE
Arab physicians and scholars laid the basis for medical
practice in Europe
Islamic civilisation once extended from
India in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. Buildings
in Andalusia such as the Alhambra in Granada, the Mezquita
in Cordoba, and the Giralda in Seville are reminders of
the architectural imprint this civilisation left on western
Europe. Less well remembered, however, is the impact of
Islamic civilisation on Western science, technology, and
medicine between the years 800 and 1450.1 As was argued
this month at the Royal Institution, today's Western world
might look very different without the legacy of Muslim scholars
in Baghdad, Cairo, Cordoba, and elsewhere.2
As Islam spread out of the Arabian Peninsula
into Syria, Egypt, and Iran it met long established civilisations
and centres of learning. Arab scholars translated philosophical
and scientific works from Greek, Syriac (the language of
eastern Christian scholars), Pahlavi (the scholarly language
of pre-Islamic Iran), and Sanskrit into Arabic. The process
of translation reached its peak with the establishment of
the "House of Wisdom" (Bait-ul-Hikma) by the Abbasid
Caliph Al-Mamun in Baghdad in 830. It made Arabic the most
important scientific language of the world for many centuries
and preserved knowledge that might otherwise have been lost
forever.
As well as assimilating and disseminating
the knowledge of other cultures, Arab scholars made numerous
important scientific and technological advances in mathematics,
astronomy, chemistry, metallurgy, architecture, textiles,
and agriculture. Techniques they developed—such as
distillation, crystallisation, and the use of alcohol as
an antiseptic—are still used.
Arab physicians and scholars also laid
the basis for medical practice in Europe. Before the Islamic
era, medical care was largely provided by priests in sanatoriums
and annexes to temples. The main Arabian hospitals were
centres of medical education and introduced many of the
concepts and structures that we see in modern hospitals,
such as separate wards for men and women, personal and institutional
hygiene, medical records, and pharmacies.
Ibn Al-Nafis, a 13th century Arab physician,
described the pulmonary circulation more than 300 years
before William Harvey.3 Surgeon Abu Al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi
wrote the Tasrif which, translated into Latin, became the
leading medical text in European universities during the
later Middle Ages. Al-Zahrawi was also a noted pathologist,
describing hydrocephalus and other congenital diseases as
well as developing new surgical technologies such as catgut
sutures.4 5 Some describe Al-Razi (Rhazes), born in 865,
as the greatest physician of the Islamic world. He wrote
Kitab Al-Mansuri (Liber Almartsoris in Latin), a 10 volume
treatise on Greek medicine,6 and also published on smallpox
and measles: his texts continued to be reprinted well into
the 19th century. The medical texts of Ibn Rushd (Averroes)
were also widely used in European universities.
Ibn Sina (Avicenna) was known in the West
as "the prince of physicians." His synthesis of
Islamic medicine, al-Qanun fi'l tibb (The Canon of Medicine),
was the final authority on medical matters in Europe for
several centuries. Although Ibn Sina made advances in pharmacology
and in clinical practice, his greatest contribution was
probably in the philosophy of medicine. He created a system
of medicine that today we would call holistic and in which
physical and psychological factors, drugs, and diet were
combined in treating patients.7
Eventually, the Islamic civilisation constructed
by the Arabs went into decline. In the east, new powers
rose: first the Mongols, who in 1258 devastated Baghdad,
the greatest Arab city of its day, and later the Ottoman
Turks, who brought large parts of the Arab world into their
new empire from the 14th century onwards. Weakened by internal
strife and civil conflict, most of the Islamic cities of
Spain had been conquered by Christian armies by the 14th
century. The last Islamic state in Spain, Granada, surrendered
to the Spanish in 1492 and its ruler, Boabdil, was exiled
to North Africa.8
The flow of technology and ideas from the
Islamic world to the West slowed and, in the past 600 years,
has reversed. Academics and politicians still debate the
reasons for and consequences of this decline in Islamic
science and technology. The legacy of Islamic civilisation,
though, remains with us in making possible Europe's own
scientific and cultural renaissance.9
Azeem Majeed, professor of primary care
Department of Primary Care and Social Medicine,
Imperial College Faculty of Medicine, London W6 8RP
(a.majeed{at}imperial.ac.uk
)
Competing interests: None declared.
References
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Drabu R, Nanji A, Greenfield S.
Science and learning in Islam—a shared legacy.
Royal Institution of Great Britian, London, 1 December
2005.
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Aschoff A, Kremer P, Hashemi B,
Kunze S. The scientific history of hydrocephalus and
its treatment Neurosurg Rev 1999;22: 67-93.[ CrossRef][ ISI][ Medline]
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Al-Hassani STS. Thousand years of
missing history. Manchester: Foundation for Science,
Technology and Civilisation, 2004.
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Van Alphen J, Aris A. Oriental medicine:
an illustrated guide to the Asian arts of healing. London:
Serindia, 2003.
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Wear A, Geyer-Kordesch J, French
R. Doctors and ethics: the historical setting of professional
ethics. Rodopi: Amsterdam, 1993.
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Fletcher R. Moorish Spain. London:
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Bulliet R. The case for Islamo-Christian
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2004.
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