[pinkstar20]

One of the topics i have an exam on is Medicine Through time out of the 2 topics i am doing i think that this is the topic im least good at and one part that confuses me abit is arabic medicine. I was just wondering if you could explain to me who the main people were in that area and what they did?

Thank you, Flo

[Mr Moorhouse]

The main things to remember for Arabian medicine are:

- the advances they made
- comparisions with European medicine

I'll do this in reverse and start with my second point.... the fall of the Roman Empire resulted in many books and libraries being destroyed in Europe. The works of people like galen and hippocrates were, therefore, lost to many scholars in Europe. However, they had been taken to east and translated. These books were used extensively by arabian scientists as a starting point for their own experiments etc... As a result, the islamic doctors had a distinct advantage over physicians in places like England as they had better reference materials.

Advances. LOADS. The Arabians developed scientific methods such as distillation and sublimation which are part an parcel of the way that scientitists test samples. They also identified mistakes that were made by the ancient philosophers - galen was proved wrng on several counts, for example. The problem for the west was that these ideas stayed retty much in the East.

Key figures:

Avicenna (Ibn Sina)

Rhazes

There are a few good sites on this topic:

http://www.islamicme...org/history.htm

http://islam-usa.com/im3.html

I have a very brief overview on my site at http://www.schoolshi...talmedicine.htm