October 23, 2013
HIS 2220: Lecture 6
Medieval Islamic Medicine
Lecture Summary:
• History of the rise and spread of Islam
• Development of Islamic Medicine
• Practitioners of Islamic Med
• Islamic Innovation
• Transmission to Europe
• The Decline of Innovation
The Rise of Islam (not on exam)
• Muhammad 570-632CE
• Hijra 622 –the year the calendar starts
• Pre-Islamic World: suffered from the Justinian Plague—form of Bubonic plague
that hit in 6 C – Nomadic people were less affected
• Islam existed for a long period of time because it was versatile and adapted the
structures
o Adoption and adaption
• The Golden Age of Islam: The Abbasid Caliphate
Islamic History
• Lots of texts
• Few historians
• Language barriers
• Orientalism – Edward Said, 1978
o Obsessed with comparing middle east to Europe
o Biased because most history academia comes from Europe Historians October 23, 2013
Medicine under Island
• Translation and synthesis
o When Islam spread, it encompassed huge territories (own cultures, laws,
tradition etc)
o Each of these territories were synthesised into one
o Islamic Synthesis –Medicine
Pre-Islamic Bedouin Tradition
• What we know is based on poerty and archaeology
• Based on superstition, animism
• Practiced cauterization, cupping, herbal remedies, camel
urine
• Main practitioners of medicine were women
Sassanian Medicine:
• Zoroastrian belief system
• Greek texts from Alexander, 323BC (invaded the sassanian
empire) and brought Greek medicine with him (humoral
theory, balance)
• Greek Texts from Nestorians, 451CE
• Indian and Chinese medicine: came about through the trade
routes –with the trade, came ideas
o Substances, herbal remedies
o Yin and Yang, Qi (balance – disease explained
through balance or imbalance of principle forces)
Caliph = religious leader at the time
o How did they do the Synthesis?
Abbasid Dynasty 750-1258 CE/ 132-656H (first none Arabic
dynasty) October 23, 2013
• Moved capital to Baghdad – cultural society and Hellenised
Translation Movement:
Began with Caliph al-mansur (d.775)
• Caliph Ma’mun (813-833) – mutazilit
o Founded the House of Wisdom –an unrivaled centre
for the study of humanities and science (medicine,
astronomy etc.) –this drew of Greek, Indian and
Persian texts
Scholars here built on their knowledge through
their own discoveries
It was an academy – main objective was
translation, reading, writing, scribing,
discourse, dialogue and discussion
• Al-Mutawakkil (847-861) – Orthodox Islam (end of translation
movement)
o Part of group that hated Mutazilits
o If it doesn’t come from Arabic culture, there’s no point
in having it –cut funding of translation
• Translation done by: Nestorians –Syriac, Greek, Persian and
Arabic speaking
o Wanted entire meaning, greater idea to be translated
o Philological and stylistic accuracy
• Practice
o Hospitals: Bimristan (name of Hospitals then)– “Gundeshapur” =teaching
hospital, 3 century but believed to be fake (officially started to arise in the
th
Golden Age –probably 8 century)
Didn’t exist until mid 19 century in Europe
Middle East Hospitals = similar to what we have today
o Complex code of ethics October 23, 2013
o Exams, licensing, clinical internships
o Funded by charity
o Treated people and educated more doctors
o Wards for men and women
o Treated disorders of the eye
o Orthopedic cases, surgical wards available and special areas for
contagious people
o also organized Military hospitals
o treatment was always for Muslims and Non-Muslims
• Practitioners
o Physicians
Received a salary, wages quite substantial and also had private
practice – as employees of the hospitals: their jobs were to give
lectures, make rounds for the patients, wrote prescriptions,
assigned treatments –also visited prisons on daily basis
Private practice: make house calls or might have practice in market
Doctors had complex code of ethics (similar the Hippocratic Oath)
A lot of respect for doctors
o Specialist – surgeons, oculists, bonesetters
Oculist (eyes)
Not so respected publically – mainly because Galetic perspective
and specialist would do surgery and success rate was low
o Apothecaries – fill prescriptions written
o Barbers – cut hair, shave beard and will blood let
o Folk –medicine practitioners –traditional style medicine, camel urine
Rural areas October 23, 2013
Usually women
Generally to the poor
o Practitioners of Islamic Medicine
Medicine is secular – interested in all aspects of higher learning
Al-Razi (Rhazes) 855-925CE
• Persian
• Differentiated smallpox from measles
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