There is no doubt that the main purpose of all the sciences Man has discovered, studied, and developed is the service of humankind; this is even more evident in the fields that deal with human health, such as medicine and pharmacology with all their branches. During the golden age of Islamic civilization, Arab scientists contributed greatly to these sciences.
A most famous and well-known case in point is the Andalusian Physician Albucasis—Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi—(died 1037), who is considered the father of surgical medicine due to the fact that he was the first surgeon to use surgical threads made from feline intestines, applying a correct scientific methodology.
Albucasis is attributed for the invention of surgical tools that are still in use to date with their original design, including spatulas tongue depressors, teeth extraction tools, bone saws, scalpels, tweezers of all kinds, just to name a few among hundreds of tools. He also described each tool accurately, explaining how it is to be manufactured and used.
Not to mention the strict rules and procedures Albucasis set for surgery, which he detailed in his book, Al-Tasrif, that is divided into thirty chapters where he tackled three main themes: diseases and anatomy; medicines and medications; surgery and its arts. This book was translated into many languages since the beginning of the 12th century, ending with the French translation in the 19th century at the hands of French Orientalist, Lucien Leclerc (died 1893).
Moreover, Albucasis pioneered the manufacture of medicinal pills and their molds; as a matter of fact, he dedicated the 28th chapter of his book, Al-Tasrif, to the reverse printing of writings on pills to make them readable, and that was before printing was introduced by the German Gothenburg (died 1468).
The truth is, Albucasis’s inventions are countless and cannot possibly be compiled in this brief space. I would just ask you to think of him whenever you see a “syringe”; an essential tool we cannot live without today that he invented and that, incredible as it may seem, is just a drop in this man’s ocean of knowledge and repertoire of contributions to humankind.
Albucasis’s writings had been the principal reference for Arab and European physicians for hundreds of years at a time when the European church prohibited the teaching of surgery in schools of medicine and considered surgeons to be heretics, claiming disease to be a punishment from God that should not be cured.
That is why medicinal science in general, surgery in particular, owe so much to the Arab Civilization, leading German Orientalist Zigrid Honke to state the following in her book “Allah’s Sun over the Occident”: “This particular branch owes its progress and rise to the Arabs. They alone are attributed for the elevation of this great art to the level it deserves and its continuation.”
Albucasis is also the first to describe a catheter surgery, inventing its concept and tools. He is also responsible for highlighting the importance of connecting arteries during surgical procedures to avoid Hemorrhaging, and so much more of what was attributed to western physicians who followed him after hundreds of years.
Not only Albucasis who had left behind an impressive scientific heritage among Arab physicians; many Muslim physicians contributed greatly to the field. One great example is Ibn Sina (died 980), also known as Avicenna, who is the author of the “Canon of Medicine”, a book the translations of which had been global medicinal references for centuries, being taught in western universities up until the beginnings of the 19th century.
We must also acknowledge Ibn al-Nafis (died 1213), Chief Egyptian Physician, who discovered pulmonary circulation, the theory of which continued to function as reference to scientists until the discovery of systematic circulation. He was one of the most important pioneers in the field of human physiology.
It would not be right to end this article without mentioning one of the greatest physicians humankind had ever yielded, as indicated by Zigrid Honke in her book, Abu Bakr al-Razi (died 923), the author of Al-Hawi, which continued to be taught in the West for almost four centuries, and in which he compiled the medicinal knowledge from Greek times to his.
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