Bimaristan
[4] Many centers of health in antiquity helped shape the ways Muslim scholars would pursue the study and advancement of medical science.
[7] The first bimaristan, built in 706 in Damascus by the Umayyad Caliph Al-Walid, focused on treating individuals with leprosy, but served patients with other concerns as well.
[11] The Qur'an provided the basis for the development of professional ethics where the rise of ritual washing also influenced the importance of hygiene in medical practice.
[13] Pharmacies were periodically visited by government inspectors called muhtasib, who checked to see that the medicines were mixed properly, not diluted and kept in clean jars.
[21] In the major hospitals at Cairo, Baghdad, and Damascus, students often visited patients while under the supervision of a practicing physician—a system comparable to a medical residency today.
[11] The first documented general hospital arose in Baghdad in 805, built by the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his vizier, Yahya ibn Khalid.
"Systemic diseases" was the rough equivalent of today's internal medicine and was further divided into sections such as fever, infections and digestive issues.
[26][better source needed] Medical facilities traditionally closed each night, but by the 10th century laws had been passed to keep hospitals open 24 hours a day.
The legal documents establishing a waqf also set forth rules for how the hospital should be organized and operate in relation to the patient, stating that anyone could be admitted regardless of race, gender, or citizenship.
The existence of hospitals in Baghdad has been documented since the 9th century CE, with the first having most likely been established in 805 by the caliph Harun al-Rashid and his vizier, Yahya ibn Khalid.
Founded by Walid ibn 'Abdulmalik, this hospital was meant to serve as a treatment center for both those with chronic illnesses, like leprosy and blindness, as well as the poor or impoverished.
[32] To accomplish these objectives, separate wards existed for infectious diseases such as leprosy, and patients faced no cost to receive treatment.
The Al-Walid Hospital has been compared to the Byzantine nosocomia, which was a charitable institution tasked with treating "...the sick, the lepers, the invalid, and the poor.
[30] The Al-Nuri Hospital was also a prestigious medical school, with one of its most noteworthy students being Ibn al-Nafis, who would later pioneer the theory of pulmonary circulation.
Bamiristans brought forth many groundbreaking medical advancements in Islamic culture during this time, which eventually spread to the entire world through trade and intellectual exchange.
Distinguished physicians of this era pioneered revolutionary procedures and practices in surgeries, techniques, discoveries, and cures for ailments and the invention of countless medical instruments.
This treatise was translated into several modern languages as well as Latin and Byzantine Greek for teaching purposes and medical treatment of such infectious diseases.
The ways in which Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine worked to bring together various disciplines and cultures, essentially revived Greek authors and philosophers and fostered new thought patterns to develop much of the future medical practices we see today.
[40] Ibn Sina was the first known physician to use a flexible catheter with the purpose of irrigating the bladder and combatting urinary retention in the human body.
Among these discoveries in astronomy, chemistry, and metallurgy, scholars developed techniques for medicine such as the distillation and use of alcohol as an antiseptic, which is still being used in hospitals today.
Some of these influential concepts include the implementation of separate wards based on disease and gender, pharmacies, housing of medical records, and the education associated with practicing medicine.
They became established centers for patient care, a main source of medical education for students, and a form of practical training for all doctors and physicians that were working within the bimaristans.
[3] They documented how the centers ran: how medical records were kept safe, how doctors and physicians became properly licensed, and how upkeep was maintained so that the hospitals could continue to serve the patients that needed many different forms of help.
Later hospitals were modelled from the original bimaristans, which shows that they were well-run centers that served a great purpose to the people in surrounding areas.
With Islamic hospitals advancing medicine so quickly, they needed a way to catalogue all of their findings which in the end lead to the first medical records.
Not only did physicians keep medical records but they kept notes on patients and provided them for peer review as a way to not be held responsible for malpractice.
The origin of Caliph Al-Muqtadir's order to Siban Ibn-Thabit was due to the fact that a patient had previously died in Baghdad as a consequence of a physician's error.
[3] Siban Ibn-Thabit was tasked with examining each of the 860 practicing physicians at the time, resulting in the failure of 160 and setting a new precedent within the medical world.
Islamic hospitals were also the first to adopt practices involving medical students, accompanied by experienced physicians, into the wards for rounds to participate in patient care.
[45] After learning from the different books and coming to their own conclusions, Arabic physicians made numerous contributions when it came to determining dosage for patients depending on their condition.
