The Modern Medical Science: a Journey Through History

dialectical subtlety, and his way of reasoning appealed to the scholastics of the middle Ages. The Qãnün formed half the medical curriculum of the European universities in the latter part of the 15th century, and continued as a text book up to about 1650 in the universities of Montpellier and Louvain. It is still the reference book of the men of medical profession in the East. After the appearance of Qãnün, the study of the books of Al-Rãzi and the Kämil al-Sana’at of Al-Majusi, which were standard works, was almost completely abandoned.
Nizãmi Arüdi Samarqandi in his ‘Chahãr Maqalah’ (Four Treatises) after narrating various works, the deep study of which is essential for the acquisition of full knowledge of the medical science, remarked “Whoever has thoroughly understood the first volume of the Qãnün, to him nothing will remain hidden of the fundamental principles of medicine, and were it possible for Hippocrates and Galen to return to life it is sure that they would do reverence to this book”.
Among the other medical writings of Ibn Sinã are Al-’Urjuzah Fi’l-Tibb, and his treatise on cordiac drugs. The latter lies probably second in importance to the Qãnün. Two other minor works, namely, Qawanin or ‘The Laws’ and the Hudüd al-Tibb (The limitations of medical science) are also known. Ibn Sinã also wrote a treatise on Colic. He is also the author of a book called Mabda’wa’l-Ma’àd, which contains an interesting chapter on the possibility of the production of exceptional psychical phenomena.
Beside Al-Qãnün some other works of Ibn Sinã have also been translated into Latin, and thus they influenced the development of science and philosophy in Europe. In his ‘Arabian Medicine’, Dr.

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