The Abbasid rule was a prosperous and flourishing time for the Islamic world. Commonly referred to as the “Golden age” of Islam, it was the height of the classical Islamic period. With new initiatives in art, literature, and sciences, the dynasty has had lasting effects on the world. Some of the most important and influential work during this time was that done on medicine. As the dynasty expanded, so did the access to knowledge and ability to share new advancements and discoveries. For medicine, this meant accurately describing new diseases, new surgical techniques, and better treatments. The most important of these advancements in the Golden age was the newly found emphasis on empirical instead of theoretical medicine, which came about due
Abu Bakr al-Razi applied the same thought process while studying smallpox and measles, coming up with the first accurate description of the two diseases. In fact, most of his original contributions were in the world of clinical medicine. He encouraged diagnosing and treating patients based on observation, rather than on theory. In order to support his thinking, he did controlled experiments to treat brain tumors. In doing this, he was not just theorizing about the treatment, but actually testing it. This was very new for the scientific community. Now, physicians and surgeons only practice clinical medicine. During Islam’s golden age, it was the reason people performed surgeries, and were able to describe diseases so well. It changed medicine forever, but not without the help of
Scholars of the golden age adopted many of these ideas. In Ibn-Sina’s Canon of Medicine, he talks about importance of knowing what causes disease, and emphasized studying symptoms of illnesses and treatments. This was a very empirical way of viewing medicine, and it is important to note that in the same book, Ibn Sina also talks about the four causes of sickness, or the four humors. This was originally a Galenic principal of medicine. By the ninth century, this form of pathology had completely merged with Arabic medicine. Galen was not the only Greek physician that influenced the Islamic world, though. Hippocrates, Rufus of Ephesus, and Dioscurides were all translated into Arabic as well. This was crucial to the advancement of Islamic medicine, since it eliminated language barriers, and made previous work done in the field more accessible.
Another group that played an integral role in the accessibility of knowledge was the Chinese. They taught the Arabs how to make paper, which lead to the creation of libraries. These libraries also made previous works more attainable, which in turn allowed them to make new advancements of their own. They no longer needed to theorize about things like the human anatomy, or the aforementioned four
The improvement of medicine over the course of the human successes gave great convenience to the people of today. Science has cured and prevented many illnesses from occurring and is on its way to cure some of the most dreadful and harmful illnesses. As the world modernizes due to the industrialization, so does the ways of medicine. Some cures are approached by chance, some, through intense, scientific measures.
As the work of translators such as, Averroes, made these scientific findings accessible for larger populations, the Muslim world grew in prominence in Eurasia. A less prevalent byproduct of globalization and contact was the boost of economies. As scientific learning centers and new technologies were traded and spread, the founding countries reaped the benefits. China, through the prominence they gained as a result of their Silk technologies, gained a high-demand export. Both cultural exchange and information exchange were direct results of major Eurasian trade networks.
Usmah Ibn Munqidh in his 1175 Autobiography relates an anecdote drawing sharp contrasts between Frankish and Arab physicians of the time. Thabit, an Arab Christian physician, was sent to al-Munaytirah to treat patients, and described healing a knight with an abscess on his leg with a poultice and a woman with “imbecility” with a prescribed diet. However, when a Frankish physician arrived at the scene, both patients were killed through extreme treatments—a self-inflicted amputation for the knight, and an attempted exorcism for the woman (Ibn Munqidh). Ibn Munqidh goes on to describe times when he witnessed Frankish medicine succeed, but this story is nonetheless largely illustrative of the gulf of medical knowledge between Western Europe and the Islamic Empire during the Middle Ages. At a time when Europeans still largely held to the idea of illness as a
The Abbasids tried to manipulate Islamic law by trying to either avoid it or find a way around it to get what they want. The Abbasids called themselves the rightful rulers of the Muslim world because they were descendants of Ali, whom had transferred the right to rule, to them. This gave them more power than anyone else, because they thought of themselves as the chosen ones. Therefore, they did anything they wanted, which included avoiding some laws or finding solutions to get what they want quickly. We know that the caliph wanted/desired a particular girl but he could not have her because she was still owned by Jafar, so the qadi who is Abu Yusuf found a way to marry the girl to a slave man who then would divorce her and give her to the caliphate.
Langholf, Volker. Medical Theories in Hippocrates: Early Texts and the Epidemics. New York: de Gruyter, 1990.
In the Renaissance, some aspects of medicine and doctors were still in a Dark Age. Outbreaks of disease were common, doctors were poor, medicine was primitive and many times doctors would kill a patient with a severe treatment for a minor disease! But, there were other sections where medicine and the use of medications improved greatly. This paper is written to illustrate the "light and dark" sides of medicine in the Renaissance.
Beginning around 460 BC, the concept of humoralism emerged throughout the written works of Hippocrates. These early works, some of the only medical works of this detailed nature to survive this period, delineated one of the first ways scholars and physicians viewed the body and more importantly illness. Shaped by the Hippocratics’ version of humoralism and his own interpretations of their written works, Galen resolutely supported the fundamental four-element theory, the notion of the four humors, and the essential practice of healing by applying opposites by physicians. However, Galen’s education in anatomy proved an effective advance in his medical reasoning away from a non-ontological view of illness into a considerably more ontological and
Early Greek medicine was more of a divine matter. It was believed that the God Asclepius was the god of medicine. Priests would live at his temples and claimed they knew the ways of healing people. It was not until around 500 B.C., a Greek physician named Alcmaeon began to dissect animals to observe their skeleton, muscles, and brain. This was most probably the first ever to describe a phenomenon through objective observations. Through his observations, he believed that illness was due to an imbalance in the body. This idea prevailed for many centuries in the history of medicine.
...rmacology became a practice, and medical experimentation common. As inspired by the printing press, medical books began being written. The years after the plague made way for modern medicine.
In modern medicine when an ailment arises it can be quickly diagnosed, attributed to a precise bacteria, virus, or body system, and treated with medication, surgery or therapy. During the time before rational medical thought, this streamlined system of treatment was unheard of, and all complaints were attributed to the will of the multitude of commonly worshiped Greek gods (Greek Medicine 1). It was during the period of Greek rationalism that a perceptible change in thought was manifested in the attitudes towards treating disease. Ancient Greece is often associated with its many brilliant philosophers, and these great thinkers were some of the first innovators to make major developments in astrology, physics, math and even medicine. Among these academics was Hippocrates, one of the first e...
The Islamic Empire took great lengths to expand their understanding of the natural world. The Caliph sent scholars to Persia, Rome, and Greece who brought back texts that were translated to Arabic. There were court appointed patronages which allowed for mastery of secular sciences. This effort allowed for advances in abstract studies of subjects such as optics and math. Medical schools are...
Wrong theories of the anatomy have been assumed to be correct for thousands of years. Theories of using a scientific base were not used by the Europeans until the Renaissance period (“Medicine”). These theories, made by a Greek Physician named Galen, were supported by the Catholic Church. The Middle Ages were a difficult time to achieve medical advances because Galen’s theories were not to be questioned or tested(“The Impact of the Renaissance on Medicine”).Even after these theories appeared to be inaccurate, the support from such a high authority made it extremely difficult to change the medical practices and training(“Rennaissance medicine”).
Long ago, when humans believed in Zeus and were polytheistic, diseases and ailments were said to be a punishment from the gods. This time period, time of the ancient Greeks, had one man step out and go beyond belief and reached above a pinnacle in the works of a physician. This man created the start of a new belief, one where illnesses and diseases were not caused by some supernatural phenomenon, yet it be caused by the works of bad choices of humans instead.
...onals around the world that continues even today. Hippocrates’s ideas from the fifth century gave humanity “the gift of knowledge”. Hippocrates planted the seed and subsequent generations of physicians and scientists have nurtured and perfected those basic ideas into the more advanced medical practices of today. Hippocrates’s knowledge remains alive today because of his writings that were discovered 200 years after his death.
...were revolutionary and still hold true today. His impact on society today goes from his celebrity status in Iran to the Ibn Sina Academy of Medieval Medicines and Sciences in Aligarh, India, Avicenna School in Karachi, Pakistan, moon crater, and a plant genius called Avicennia. This Renaissance man sacrificed a lot of time to write his many books. He sacrificed a lot of time to gain a vast amount of knowledge from Aristotle to cadavers. “Ibn Sina sought to integrate all aspects of science and religion in a grand metaphysical vision. With this vision he attempted to explain the formation of the universe as well as to elucidate the problems of evil, prayer, providence, prophecies, miracles, and marvels. Also within its scope fall problems relating to the organization of the state in accord with religious law and the question of the ultimate destiny of man” (Iskander).