The Modern Medical Science: a Journey Through History

two Persian works are also known. One of them named Danishnama-e ‘Alài which was dedicated to Ala al-Dawlah, is a manual of philosophy. It deals with natural science, philosophy, logic, mathematics, music, metaphysics and astronomy. The other is a small treatise on pulse.
Among the 16 medical writings of Ibn Sinã, eight are versified treatises. They deal with such matters as the 25 signs indicating the fatal end of illness, hygienic precepts, proved remedies, anatomical memoranda, and similar other topics. Among his books the most important and popular is Al-Qãnün (Canon). This is a comprehensive book and contains about a million words. It has been excessively and beautifully divided into major and minor sections. The whole work has been divided into five parts. The first part deals with the general principles of medical treatment, the second describes the simple drugs in alphabetical order. The third part discusses the diseases of all the organs of the human body, and the fourth consists of the description of those diseases which are local in the beginning, and finally affect all parts of the body. The final part is on materia medica. The Qãnün was translated into Hebrew in 1270. It was also translated into Latin by the two Gerard of Toledo, and about 30 editions of this work were published in Europe. Many commentaries on the work were written in the 15th century. A beautiful Arabic edition of the book was published in Rome in 1593. Another edition was published in Egypt a few years ago. The translation of the first volume of the book, with the exception of the anatomical part, was made into English in 1930 by Dr. O.C. Gruner and was commented by him and by Dr. Soubiran in 1935.
Ibn Sinã surpassed both Aristotle and Galen in

Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30