The Modern Medical Science: a Journey Through History

the end of the 11th century, all the medical works in the Muslim world were written in Arabic. Arabic language was the only medium for expressing religious and philosophical ideas throughout the Muslim world. Even the works of non-Muslims were written in Arabic. But for the first time, in the 11th century, medical literature was produced in Persian as well. A physician, Zain al-Din Abu’l-Fada’il Ismã’il Ibn al- Husain came to the court of Khwärizm and wrote some works on medicine in Persian. He also wrote in Arabic. Among these the most important was a medical encyclopedia, the Dhakhira-e-Khwarizm Shahi, the treasure of the king of Khwãrizm. It was written for Qutb al-Din Muhammad Shah (1097-1127).
The Dhakhira consists of about 450,000 words. It is very carefully divided into various headings and sub-headings. Primarily, it is divided into nine books. A tenth book on simple drugs had been added later. Secondarily, it is divided into 75 discourses and 1107 chapters. Six chapters of the eighth discourse of the sixth book are devoted to the local diseases of heart, and a part of the 13th discourse deals with Istisqä. The Tadhkirah was translated into Hebrew. A lithographed Urdu translation of this book is used in India and Pakistan.
The author compiled some other comparatively short books. For the wazir of Qutb al-Din successor. He composed a treatise entitled Aqhrad
ai-Tibb. He compiled another treatise on drugs and pharmacy. He also wrote a condensed edition of Tadhkirah entitled Khafi ‘Alä’i. Khafi is a derivative of Khaf, meaning a riding shoe. The book was written in two long volumes so that the traveler could take each one of these volumes in a riding shoe. Ismãil Ibn al-Hunayn is also the author of some

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