Avicenna
(History of Medicine ... 4)
Avicenna – the Latin name of Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd- Allah ibn Sina – was a Persian physician, who lived from 980 to 1037.
In those days the amount of available information was more limited, which made it possible to acquire a very diversified range of knowledge. Besides being a physician, Avicenna was astronomer, chemist, geologist, psychologist, Islamic theologian and scholar, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist and poet.
He wrote extensively. Forty of his books that were not lost are related to Medicine. The most famous are The Book of Healing, a scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a complete textbook based on the principles of Galen and Hippocrates. The Canon of Medicine was used as a text book in the universities of Montpellier and Louvain until 1650.
Among Avicenna’s “firsts”:
• The discovery of contagious and sexually transmitted diseases.
• The introduction of experimental medicine.
• The concept of evidence-based medicine.
• Randomized controlled trials for testing the efficacy of new medications.
• Risk factor analysis.
• Neuropsychiatry.
• The anatomy of the human eye and the description of cataracts.
• The symptoms and complications of diabetes.
He also hypothesized the existence of microorganisms. Not bad for the so-called Dark Ages.
Avicenna – the Latin name of Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd- Allah ibn Sina – was a Persian physician, who lived from 980 to 1037.
In those days the amount of available information was more limited, which made it possible to acquire a very diversified range of knowledge. Besides being a physician, Avicenna was astronomer, chemist, geologist, psychologist, Islamic theologian and scholar, paleontologist, mathematician, physicist and poet.
He wrote extensively. Forty of his books that were not lost are related to Medicine. The most famous are The Book of Healing, a scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a complete textbook based on the principles of Galen and Hippocrates. The Canon of Medicine was used as a text book in the universities of Montpellier and Louvain until 1650.
Among Avicenna’s “firsts”:
• The discovery of contagious and sexually transmitted diseases.
• The introduction of experimental medicine.
• The concept of evidence-based medicine.
• Randomized controlled trials for testing the efficacy of new medications.
• Risk factor analysis.
• Neuropsychiatry.
• The anatomy of the human eye and the description of cataracts.
• The symptoms and complications of diabetes.
He also hypothesized the existence of microorganisms. Not bad for the so-called Dark Ages.
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