The Modern Medical Science: a Journey Through History

circumstances often obliged him to travel from court to court where sometimes honours were showered upon him, and sometimes he was cast into prison. But whatever the situation may be, he occupied himself in reading, writing and teaching, and remained always surrounded by a group of his pupils. He was a philosopher, physician, scientist, poet, philologist, logician, statesman and thinker, who made research, and contributed to the development of all sciences, and through whose efforts medicine, recorded an unprecedented progress. He was hailed by the scholars as Al-Shaykh al-Ra’is (the Great Teacher). He possessed so many qualities that, while discussing his life history, we almost fail to decide as to what aspect of his life should be more particularly discussed.
Ibn Sinã, the ‘Prince of Physicians’ as he was called throughout the medieval times, was born in 980 at a village in the Persian Province of Balkh where his father lived. In 985 his family moved to Bukhãrã where, at the age of five, he started his education. At the age of 10 years he had already completed his basic education, and also learnt the Qurãn by heart. He was, then, sent to various teachers under whom, for the next six years, he studied algebra, arithmetic, astronomy, logic, philosophy and theology. At the age of 16 he turned to medicine. In the course of his study of philosophy, Ibn Sinã was confused by those problems which were related to metaphysics, but ultimately he got rid of his difficulties with the help of a commentary by a distinguished philosopher, Al-Färàbi, Ibn Sinä was an industrious student who never spent a whole day or a whole night in sleep or in any other occupation but study, and whenever he came across some obscure point he would go to a

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