History of Herbs :: Islam
Unacknowledged Contributions
While the Roman Empire attempted to stave off invading armies from the north, the Arab civilization in the Middle East
was beginning to bloom again. With the once great empire weakened, a void was left in intellectual study. In 600 CE, Islamic
armies invaded Spain, North Africa and the Far East. From each culture they encountered, they collected herbal and
historical texts as spoils of war and returned them to Baghdad to be interpreted into Arabic. It was in this was that they
learned many of the secrets of Greco-Roman and Ayurvedic medicine and expanded upon them.
The first great Muslim physician was Rhazes. Born in 865 CE, he studied the works of the Greeks and Romans extensively and chose to practice in the manner of Hippocrates rather than Galen. He was an excellent diagnostician and considered the preeminent doctor and teacher at the hospital in Baghdad. When he died in 925, he left behind 24 volumes of medical texts, which included a vast number of prescriptions and observations of the effects these preparations had on the patient. Kitab al-Mansuri (Liber Almansoris) was a collection of his life’s work and his greatest contribution to medical study.
Abu Ali Sena, known as Avincenna, was born in the 10th century CE. He studied all the natural sciences of his day, astronomy, philosophy, medicine and literature and he was adept in every field. While still a young man, he cured a prince and his fame spread. By age 17, he was the most sought after physician in Bukhara. In 1014 CE, he was installed as the court physician in Isfahan. During his tenure, he completed his Canon Medicinae (Canon of Medicine), the first complete medical treatise in Arabic. In the second volume, he directs addresses pharmacology, describing 811 medicinal substances, mineral as well as plants, and occasionally describes the drug’s effects on the human body.
Avincenna introduced glucose therapy to medicine by promoting the consumption of fruits with high sugar content. Instead of Galen’s complex medicines, he simplified recipes and administered them via massage, enema, compress and syrup. Arab physicians also developed the first tinctures (alcohol extractions) using distillation, a process they had previously invented. Before his death, Avincenna gave away his fortune and freed his slaves. He was thereafter revered as the “prince of physicians” and held as a model for progressive physicians throughout the world.
The Islamic rule extended into Spain, where previously unknown herbs grew. For 600 years, Arab doctors identified, studied and prescribed these new plants. Abulcasis, an Arab herbalist living in Cordoba, Spain, compiled Liber Servitoris (The Book of Simples) during the same period that Avincenna was working in Baghdad.
Corpus of Simples, the most complete Arab herbal was written by Ibn al-Baitar, who lived in Malaga, Spain between 1197 – 1248 CE. He traveled extensively, from Spain to Syria, collecting herb samples along the way. His total collection reached 1500 plants and when he finally documented his research, he added 200 new herbs to the healer’s repertoire.
The contributions of Arab healers regularly go unmentioned by Western medicine. The fact is that the discovery of distillation, the extensive documentation of new findings, and the preservation of the works by Greek and Roman physicians advanced medicine quickly and irrevocably. The herbals written by these men were still in regular use 600 years after their deaths.
12th c Letter From an Arab Doctor
They took me to see a knight who had an abscess on his leg, and a woman with consumption. I applied a poultice to the leg and the abscess opened and began to heal. I prescribed a cleansing and refreshing diet for the woman. Then there appeared a Frankish (European) doctor, who said: “This man has no idea how to cure these people!” He turned to the knight and said: “Which would you prefer, to live with one leg or die with two?” When the knight replied that he would prefer to live with one leg, he sent for a strong man and a sharp axe. They arrived and I stood by to watch. The doctor supported the leg on a block of wood, and said to the man: “Strike a mighty blow and cut it cleanly!” And there, before my eyes the fellow struck the knight one blow, and then another for the first had not done the job. The marrow spurted out of the leg, and the patient died instantaneously. Then the doctor examined the woman and said: “She has a devil in her head who is in love with her. Cut her hair off!” This was done and she went back to eating her usual Frankish food, garlic and mustard which made her illness worse. “The devil has got into her brain,” pronounced the doctor. He took a razor and cut a cross on her head, and removed the brain so that the inside of her skull was laid bare. This he rubbed with salt; the woman died instantly. At this juncture, I asked whether they had any further need of me, and as they had none I came away, having learnt things about medical methods that I never knew before. (tr. E. J. Costello)
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