Avicenna: The Compiler?
Avicenna: The Compiler?
by Peter E. Pormann
Avicenna is not only the towering figure in medieval Islamic medicine, but also one of the most influential physicians ever to have lived.
Avicenna was born in Bukhāra some time before 980 and received there an impeccable education in the so-called ‘Greek’ sciences. He mastered not only the preparatory curriculum, but also topics such as logic, mathematics, physics, and metaphysics. Although he later excelled in medicine, and had a tremendous impact in this area, he regarded this topic as a derivative science that was easy to learn. In fact, he claimed to be self-taught in medicine, but this seems unlikely, as other physicians are recorded in the sources as having been his teacher. Be that as it may, various peregrinations brought Avicenna from Bukhāra to Gorgānj, Jorjān, Hamadān, and Rayy (near modern Teheran), and thence back east to Iṣfahān, which was ‘neṣf chahān (half the world)’ according to a Persian proverb and represented a major intellectual, cultural and economic centre. There he died in 1037, supposedly of overindulging in sex (although the reports to this effect appear to be later fabrications)...
Left: Opening page of Galen’s On the Sects for Beginners with owner’s note by Avicenna.
Avicenna’s most famous medical work is undoubtedly the Canon of Medicine, and we shall return to it shortly. But he also authored a large number of other medical works, which can be divided into two different categories: prose treatises on single topics; and didactic poems. Among his extant works, the former include a Treatise on the Principles of Cardiac Drugs (Maqāla fī Aḥkām al-adwiya al-qalbīya); an Epistle on Natural Powers (Risāla fī l-quwā al-ṭabīʿīya); an Epistle on Phlebotomy (Risāla fī l-Faṣd); an Epistle on Urine (Risāla fī l-Bawl); an Epistle on Intermittent Fever (Fī Shaṭr al-ghibb); an Epistle on Colics (Risāla fī l-Qawlanj); an Epistle on the Number of Intestines (Risāla fī l-ʿadad al-amʿāʾ); a Book on Protecting the Human Body from General Damage (Kitāb Dafʿ al-maḍārr al-kullīya ʿan al-abdān al-insānīya); an Epistle on Sexual Intercourse (Risāla fī l-Bāh); a Book on Oxymel (Kitāb fī l-Sikanjubīn); and a Treatise on Endives (Maqāla fī l-Hindibāʾ). His didactic poems deal with medicine in general (al-Urjūza fī l-Ṭibb), as well as specific topics such as Sexual Intercourse (al-Urǧūza fī l-Bāh) and dietetics according to the seasons (al-Urjūza Tadbīr al-fuḥūl fī l-ƒuṣūl; lit. ‘poem on the regimen of great men during the seasons’). He also composed a shorter Subtle Poem on the Twenty-Five Deadly Occurrences of Hippocrates (Urǧūza laṭīfa ƒī qadāyā Abuqrāṭ al-ḫams wa-l-ʿišrīn), which lists twenty-five symptoms that lead to the death of the patient; and a Poem on the Preservation of Health (Urjūza fī ḥifẓ al-ṣiḥḥa)...
Right: The opening page of the revised Latin translation of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine.
In Arabic alone, more than thirty commentaries and super-commentaries on the Canon survive in over a hundred manuscripts. No other text except the Qurʾān received so much scholarly attention. Most of this exegetical tradition has never been studied, read, or translated, so we are in no position to produce generalising statements about it. Yet, the few commentaries that have been studied proved to contain some very interesting material. The most famous case is that of Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288), who wrote a commentary on the first book of the Canon (the ‘Generalities’), as well as on the ‘anatomy (tashrīḥ)’; in the latter, he argued for the so-called ‘pulmonary transit’, understanding that blood moves from the right to the left ventricle of the brain via the lungs (for further information, see the article by Nahyan Fancy below)...
Left: The central text consists of the anatomical sections of the Canon of Medicine by Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna). In the margins are lengthy quotations from the commentary on the anatomy of the Canon that was written by Ibn al-Nafīs (d. 1288).
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"Avicenna: The Compiler?" by Peter E. Pormann
~ Chapter sixteen, Pages 154-161 ~
~ Chapter sixteen, Pages 154-161 ~
1001 Cures Book tells the fascinating story of how generations of physicians from different countries and creeds created a medical tradition admired by friend and foe. It influences the fates and fortunes of countless human beings, both East and West.