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Impact of the Islamic religion on Medicine.

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   advanced      Arabic      Baghdad      barbarian      Cairo      Caliph      dissection      distillation      doctors      East      Empire      exams      fractures      Galen      hygiene      Indian      Latin      medicine      mental      Muhammad      opposites      Persia      physician      possessed      Roman      science      separate      seventeenth      sick      smallpox      texts      trade      women   

Context:
The Empire split in Western and Eastern empires in 395 due to pressure from
tribes and the Roman Empire eventually collapsed in 476 AD.
As a result there was a more primitive approach to and causes and cure of illness in Europe.

Medical knowledge from Rome was preserved in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine). Nestorius was banished
from Jerusalem and settled in and set up a centre of medical learning and translated this knowledge
of Hippocrates and Galen into . This meant they were using complete
and looking at Hippocratic ideas of observation of disease.

The Islamic Arabic civilisation in the Middle was based on the religion of the Prophet
(peace be upon him) and was set up in the 7th century. By 1000 AD the empire spread with
as the capital. Arabists (following Arabic school of medicine) followed Hippocrates’
clinical observation and the four humours and Galen’s treatment of .

Johannitus was chief and had travelled to Greece to collect medical texts which he translated
into Arabic. This knowledge was lost to the west so we could consider that Islamic medicine was more
.

The Islamic Empire was ruled by the - he provided stability and an interest in
. Caliph Harun started
important developments in medical knowledge so centres of learning and new ideas developed.
Government set up medical schools
931 AD doctors had to pass and get a licence
building of hospitals with first in 805 AD which offered treatment not just care as in Europe
Hospitals had wards for different diseases and high standards of
.
Hospitals called bimaristans were built which proved care for all (rich, poor, men, , Muslim and
non-Muslim) and doctors and medical students staffed them.
The first hospitals designed for illness were set up called maristans. In the west anyone who had a
mental illness was considered as but in Islamic medicine there was a genuine wish to treat these
people with compassion.
Qur’an stressed duty to care for the and study medicine.
..
Arabic alchemists invented techniques such as and sublimation and prepared drugs such as
laudanum, benzoin and camphor.
Women were allowed in the Arab world at this time.
Major cities of Baghdad and had piped water and public baths.
Arab doctors increased knowledge by learning from and Persian doctors.

Therefore we can see that there was substantial progress made in Islamic medicine. The one factor which held back progress was that no
was allowed - this was strictly against their religious beliefs.

Key individuals who made a difference include:
1. Rhazes: followed Hippocratic methods of observation and noted symptoms of and measles.
2. Avicenna wrote The Canon of Medicine based on Galen's work. This was later translated to and
became the main medical textbook in Europe until 1700.
3. Albucasis: Arab surgeon and wrote on amputation, , dislocations and dentistry
4. Ibn an Nafis: discovered errors in (blood through lungs not pores in septum as Galen said) but his
book was not read in the West and people continued to accept Galen's mistake until the
century.

Rhazes
How did ideas spread to the west?
Arabic ideas spread to Europe as a result of and Christian Crusades. Doctors who travelled with
armies brought back ideas.
Muslims from North Africa ruled Spain in the Middle Ages and Muslim ideas about medicine came to western Europe through Spain.