1001 Cures; Contributions in Medicine & Healthcare from Muslim Civilisation 

1001 Cures; Contributions in Medicine & Healthcare from Muslim Civilisation 

Similar manuscripts of work on anatomy contained illustrated chapters on five systems of the body: bones, nerves, muscles, veins and arteries. This page depicts the arteries, with the internal organs shown in watercolors...

Pages from the original manuscript of Al-Tasrif depicting surgical instruments (<a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/medical-sciences-islamic-civilization" target="_blank">Source</a>)

Ibn Sina's celebrated work AI-Qanun fit-tibb or The Canon of Medicine (<a href="http://www.muslimheritage.com/article/ibn-sinas-canon-medicine" target="_blank">Source</a>)

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 (Original source: Shahnama-i Firdawsī, Turk-Islam Exhibits Museum, Istanbul, MS 1955). Image taken from: Turkish Medical History through Miniature Pictures. ed. Nil Sari, Istanbul 2002. Source: http://muslimheritage.com/article/caesarean-section-early-islamic-literature

A miniature page of al-Firdawsî's Shahnama indicating the birth of Rustam. Source: Topkapi Palace Library, MS H 1479. Source: http://muslimheritage.com/article/caesarean-section-early-islamic-literature

13th-century manuscript showing a Greek translation of the medical handbook by Ibn al-Jazzār entitled Provisions for the Traveller and Nourishment for the Sedentary (Zād al-Musāfir wa-qūt al-ḥāḍir), known in Greek as Ephódia toû apodēmoûntos. The handbook was first translated from Arabic by Constantime the African (d. before 1099).

In the early period of Graeco-Arabic translation movement, Syriac translations often served as an intermediary step in the transmission from Greek into Arabic. The first aphorisms of this copy of Hippocratic Aphorisms in Syriac and Arabic says that ‘life is short, the Art long, opportunity fleeting, experience dangerous, and judgement difficult.’

Opening of Maimonides’ Abridgment of Galen’s ‘Method of Healing’ in Judaeo-Arabic, that is, Arabic written in Hebrew. The text begins with the basmala ‘In the name of God, the merciful, the compassionate (Bi-smi llāhi l-raḥmāni l-raḥīm)’ .

Dioscorides’ Materia Medica lists the humoral qualities of drugs. Or. 3366, f. 89r 

Opening page of Ibn al-Tilmīdh’s Treatise on Bloodletting. Arundel Or. 10, f. 109v

Dioscorides’ Materia Medica lists the humoral qualities of drugs. Or. 3366, f. 89r

The human skeleton as illustrated in a copy of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine. Contrart to popular claims, there was no religious prohibition of the dissection of dead animals in pre-modern Islamic societies.

Ibn Jazla’s Almanac of Bodily Parts for the Treatment of People, written in Arabic and Karshūnī, meaning Arabic written in Syriac letters. In it, Ibn Jazlan often arranged the information in the form of diagrams.

Arab physicians divided medicine into two areas: ‘the preservation of health which aims to retain the state of a healthy individual and prevent him or her from becoming ill; and ‘the restoration of health which aims to return the sick person to his natural healthy state. This 13th-century manuscript image from al-Ḥarīrī’s Maqāmāt shows doctors visiting a patient.

A physician with a patient about to vomit. Taken from a 13th-century copy of the Arabic version of Dioscorides’ On Medicinal Substances.

A 16th-century Persian miniature dipicting Ibn Sina (Avicenna) at the bedside of a patient suffering from love-sickness (ʿishq). According to Arabo-Islamic physicians, the overall functioning of the body demonstrated the reciprocity between the mixture of the humours on one side and psychological events on the other.

Right: Inside the Arghūn hospital in Aleppo where water features were essential. The soft sound of water soothes the mind. The architectural features of this 14th-century hospital reflect a careful cpnsideration to the needs of patients.

Books on medicine were among the first scientific works to be translated into Arabic during the translation movement of the 8th to 10th centuries. This image from a copy of the Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ On Medical Substances dipicts what’s happening inside a pharmacist’s shop.

The description of malabathron (sādhaj) in the Arabic translation of Dioscorides’ Medical Substances. The face of the person collecting the malabathron has been erased.

Two patients in front of a physician, with some surgical instruments on the table. From De Materia Medica by Dioscorides.

Surgical instruments illustrated in a Hebrew translation of al-Zahrāwī’s Surgery.

Surgical instruments from Fusṭāṭ (Old Cairo), 9th century.

Left: A physician takes the pulse of a young girl. While female healers were an important source of primary healthcare in the medieval world, there are very few references to female doctors (singular, ṭabība) in Arabic biographical and medical literature. Moreover, no medical text by a female physician survives – if they even existed.

Right: Surgical instruments for extracting a dead foetus taken from al-Zahrāwī’s Surgery. It would appear that the obstetrical operations outlined in medieval medical texts might represent a kind of relic of ancient theory rather than contemporaneous practice. Like al-Zahrāwī, most doctors probably employed less invasive means, such as the use of pharmaceuticals, for these difficult procedures.

A woman giving birth attended by other women, possibly midwives.

In the bathhouse (ḥammām). Miniature from a 16th-century Persian manuscript.

In school. Al-Jāḥiẓ said: ‘God has divided stupidity into 100 parts. He gave 99 parts to teachers and the last part to other people.’

Left: The anatomy of the eye and its muscles. From the Ten Treatises on the Eye (Al-ʿAshr maqālāt fī l-ʿayn) by the famous 9th-century translator Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq. The book is arguably the most influential work on ophthalmology in the Middle Ages.

Right: Doctors working in the medieval Islamicate world engaged critically with the material concerning ophthalmology that was inherited from Graeco- Roman antiquity. This field of medicine was called kuḥl in Arabi. This 13th century manuscript dipicts instruments for eye surgery as displayed in a copy of al-Ḥalabī’s Sufficient Book on Ophthalmology (al-Kāfī fī l-kuḥl).

The end of a plague tract that, according to the colophon shown here, was completed on 19 Rabi‘ II 944 (= 26 September 1537). The author is apparently the same as the Malakite theologian Abū ‘Abd Allāh Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥaṭṭāb al-Malikī al-Ru‘aynī who died in 1547/954. The undated copy appears to have been made during the author's lifetime and is possibly in his own hand.

Right: Doctors working in the medieval Islamicate world engaged critically with the material concerning ophthalmology that was inherited from Graeco- Roman antiquity. This field of medicine was called kuḥl in Arabic. This 13th century manuscript depicts instruments for eye surgery as displayed in a copy of al-Ḥalabī’s Sufficient Book on Ophthalmology (al-Kāfī fī l-kuḥl).

Frontispiece from Crollius’ Royal Chemistry (Basilica Chymica) which was translated into both Ottoman Turkish and Persian in the 17th century.

The process of distillation as illustrated in a medieval Arabic manuscript.

Alchemical intruments. top: glass beaker; bottom: alembic and cucurbit.

A manuscript from al-Ḥarīrī’s Maqāmāt dipicting cupping performed by a charlatan.

Three physicians in conversation from a 13th-century miniature from a translation of Dioscordies's "De Materia Medica"

Ibn Tulun mosque in Cairo. In the 9th century, the mosque had a bīmāristān attached to it. in the 9th century.

Layout of Qalawun's hospital in Cairo, as it functioned in the early nineteenth century.

Entrance of the Divrigi hospital in Turkey.

Among al-Rāzī’s most important medical works is the multi-volume Arabic encyclopaedia called The Comprehensive Book of Medicine (Al-Kitāb al-Ḥāwī fī al-Ṭibb), which consists of a collection of lecture notes gathered and arranged by al-Rāzī’s students after his death.

The opening page of the Vesalius’ Abridgment of al-Rāzī’s Ninth Book for Al-Manṣūr (Paraphrasis in nonum librum Rhazae).

Opening page of Galen’s On the Sects for Beginners with owner’s note by Avicenna.

The opening page of the revised Latin translation of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine.

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).

Two people in a physician’s surgery. From Ibn Buṭlān’s Physicians’ Dinner Party. The manuscript is from 13th century Iraq or Syria.

13th-century manuscript from Animals and their uses/ Kitab na’t al-hayawan wamanafi’ihi showing Aristotle and Alexander the Great.

Three physicians in conversation from a 13th-century miniature from a translation of Dioscordies's "De Materia Medica"

Inside the Divrigi hospital in Turkey.