Medicine in the medieval Islamic world

[4] Medieval Islamic physicians largely retained their authority until the rise of medicine as a part of the natural sciences, beginning with the Age of Enlightenment, nearly six hundred years after their textbooks were opened by many people.

A physician called Abdalmalik ben Abgar al-Kinānī from Kufa in Iraq is supposed to have worked at the medical school of Alexandria before he joined ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz's court.

He only cites earlier works in Arabic translations, as were available to him, including Hippocrates, Plato, Galen, Pythagoras, and Aristotle, and also mentions the Persian names of some drugs and medical plants.

Led by the Christian physician Hunayn ibn Ishaq, and with support by Byzance, all available works from the antique world were translated, including Galen, Hippocrates, Plato, Aristotle, Ptolemy and Archimedes.

[19] The works of Oribasius, physician to the Roman emperor Julian, from the 4th century AD, were well known, and were frequently cited in detail by Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (Rhazes).

[19] One of the first books which were translated from Greek into Syrian, and then into Arabic during the time of the fourth Umayyad caliph Marwan I by the Jewish scholar Māsarĝawai al-Basrĩ was the medical compilation Kunnāš, by Ahron, who lived during the 6th century.

[24] Within medieval Islamic medicine, Hunayn ibn Ishāq and his younger contemporary Tabit ben-Qurra play an important role as translators and commentators of Galen's work.

in the 10th century, the physician 'Ali ibn al-'Abbas al-Majusi wrote:[25] With regard to the great and extraordinary Galen, he has written numerous works, each of which only comprises a section of the science.

Founded, according to Gregorius Bar-Hebraeus, by the Sassanid ruler Shapur I during the 3rd century AD, the academy connected the ancient Greek and Indian medical traditions.

al-Tabarī devotes the last 36 chapters of his Firdaus al-Hikmah to describe the Indian medicine, citing Sushruta, Charaka, and the Ashtanga Hridaya (Sanskrit: अष्टांग हृदय, aṣṭāṇga hṛdaya; "The eightfold Heart"), one of the most important books on Ayurveda, translated between 773 and 808 by Ibn-Dhan.

Al-Tabari, a pioneer in the field of child development, emphasized strong ties between psychology and medicine, and the need for psychotherapy and counseling in the therapeutic treatment of patients.

His work was highly respected by the 10th/11th century physicians and scientists al-Biruni and al-Nadim, who recorded biographical information about al-Razi, and compiled lists of, and provided commentaries on, his writings.

[…] In his description of every illness, their causes, symptoms and treatment he describes everything which is known to all ancient and modern physicians since Hippocrates and Galen up to Hunayn ibn Ishaq and all those who lived in-between, leaving nothing out of all that every one of them has ever written, carefully noting down all of this in his book, so that finally all medical works are contained within his own book.Al-Hawi remained an authoritative textbook on medicine in most European universities, regarded until the seventeenth century as the most comprehensive work ever written by a medical scientist.

[66] Ibn Sina is credited with many varied medical observations and discoveries such as recognizing the potential of airborne transmission of disease, providing insight into many psychiatric conditions, recommending use of forceps in deliveries complicated by fetal distress, distinguishing central from peripheral facial paralysis and describing guinea worm infection and trigeminal neuralgia.

There are one million of words consisting of medical encyclopedia showing the discoveries made by Arabs with its Greek origins while being observed by Ibn Sina’s personal insights.

[76] The description on the anatomy of the eye led him to form the basis for his theory of image formation, which is explained through the refraction of light rays passing between two media of different densities.

[76] Ahmad ibn Abi al-Ash'ath, a famous physician from Mosul, Iraq, described the physiology of the stomach in a live lion in his book al-Quadi wa al-muqtadi.

[79] According to Galen, in his work entitled De ossibus ad tirones, the lower jaw consists of two parts, proven by the fact that it disintegrates in the middle when cooked.

[80] He wrote in his work Al-Ifada w-al-Itibar fi al-Umar al Mushahadah w-al-Hawadith al-Muayanah bi Ard Misr, or "Book of Instruction and Admonition on the Things Seen and Events Recorded in the Land of Egypt":[80] All anatomists agree upon that the bone of the lower jaw consists of two parts joined together at the chin.

Poppy was prescribed by Yuhanna b. Masawayh to relieve pain from attacks of gallbladder stones, for fevers, indigestion, eye, head and tooth aches, pleurisy, and to induce sleep.

Surgery was uncommonly practiced by physicians and other medical affiliates due to a very low success rate, even though earlier records provided favorable outcomes to certain operations.

A common complication of trachoma patients is the vascularization of the tissue that invades the cornea of the eye which was thought to be the cause of the disease by ancient Islamic physicians.

The pain-killing uses of opium had been known since ancient times; other drugs including "henbane, hemlock, soporific black nightshade, lettuce seeds" were also used by Islamic physicians to treat pain.

[103] The use of prayers and invocations to God were also a part of religious belief surrounding women's health, the most notable being Muhammad's encounter with a slave-girl whose scabbed body he saw as evidence of her possession by the Evil Eye.

[105] The topic of contraceptives and abortion had been very controversial throughout the western world; however, in the Islamic culture, due to the ties between women's reproductive health and one's overall well-being, medieval Muslim physicians devoted time and research into recording and testing different theories in this field.

This was the act of intentionally causing a miscarriage in the very early stages of pregnancy, though medical journals outlined a variety of methods, this was usually achieved through the consumption of plant derived substances.

[109] Medical journals and other literature from this time show an extensive and detailed list of a variety of different drugs and plant derived substances that supposedly have abortifacient qualities.

The data from this research made its way into the previously mentioned medical journals, already containing a list of abortifacients, providing a great variety of drugs and other prescribed substances for use as a contraceptive.

The great availability and accessibility of these medical texts and the depth of research shown by the data shows that contraceptives and abortions, surgical or not, were frequently sought after by women of this time.

[120] Medieval Islam's receptiveness to new ideas and heritages helped it make major advances in medicine during this time, adding to earlier medical ideas and techniques, expanding the development of the health sciences and corresponding institutions, and advancing medical knowledge in areas such as surgery and understanding of the human body, although many Western scholars have not fully acknowledged its influence (independent of Roman and Greek influence) on the development of medicine.