Arabian medicine in the Middle Ages.

The history of Arabian medicine can only be studied satisfactorily in conjunction with the general history of Islam, which began to assume political importance in AD 622. In that year, the prophet Mohammed united the warring tribes of Arabia through a common religious and social ideal. This vision enabled the Arabs to conquer half of the known world and to build an empire destined to replace those of Rome and Persia. In the early Islamic and Umayyad period (661-750), the usual folk medicine, which is found in all primitive societies, abounded. The general belief was that for every malady Allah had appointed an appropriate remedy. There were, however, only three principal methods of treatment: the administration of honey, cupping and cautery. This practice of medicine gained wide popularity and acquired a great significance because it was held to be the teachings of the prophet and was thus coined 'Prophet Medicine'. However, as IbnKhaldun (1967) has shown, this is essentially Bedouin medicine and it can have no claim to Divine revelation. It was not until the ninth century, with the hellenization of Islam, that the evolution of a highly sophisticated system of scientific medicine began. An acrimonious theological dissension in the fifth century was responsible for the preservation of Greek medicine until the fifteenth century. Nestorius, Bishop of Constantinople in 431, was excommunicated by the Council of Ephesus for his denial of the Doctrine of Theotokos (that Mary was the mother of God). The foundation of the Nestorian Church followed his condemnation and subsequent death. The Nestorians established a successful school of medicine and two hospitals in Edessa, Mesopotamia, but in 489 they were expelled and their buildings razed by the Orthodox Emperor, Zeno, under the influence of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. They further established their centres at Nisibis, being warmly welcomed by Chosroes, under whom Persia attained the zenith of its power and culture in the sixth century. He founded a university at Jundi Shapur ('beautiful garden'), which combined classical learning with Indian philosophy and medicine. In 636, with the defeat of the armies of the Eastern Emperor, Heraclitus, by Khalid IbnAl-Walid, the 'Sword of God', the scholars at Jundi Shapur feared the destruction of their school. However, the Muslims were immediately influenced by the classical masters and Jundi Shapur, far from being destroyed, became the cradle of the Arabian School of Medicine. The Arabs, under the Umayyad Caliphate, had been mainly concerned with their military might and the expansion of their empire. The succeeding Abbasid Caliphate was conspicuous for its intellectual activity and generous patronage of learning and the arts and ushered in the golden age of Hellenic culture. Baghdad became the metropolis of Islam, where the influence of Jundi Shapur and its physicians, notably the Bukht Yishu family, were deeply felt (Margotta 1967). The Byzantine Emperor was amazed to discover that the collecting and purchasing of Greek manuscripts were among the terms of peace dictated by the victorious Saracen leaders. 'It was this people who took from the hands of the unworthy successors of Galen and Hippocrates the flickering torch of Greek medicine. They failed to restore its ancient splendour, but they at least prevented its extinction and they handed it back after five centuries burning more brightly than before' (Withington 1894).