General Overview

• Important medieval Islamic physicians
• `Razis' the great clinician of the early 10th century
• `Avicen', or Avicenna as other Europeans called him, referring to Ibn Sina whose early 11th-century medical encyclopedia was as important in Europe as it was in the Middle East.
• Arabic medical literature of the 9th to 12th centuries, through Latin translations, provided late medieval Europe with ideas and practices from which early modern medicine eventually arose.
• Arabic Physicians were influenced heavily by the earlier Greek teachings. They mingled that with some Persian, Indian, and Arab elements.
• Communications over such a vast area during the course of several centuries were, as would be expected, neither uniform nor very swift, and the dispersion of ideas and texts from one region to another was uneven.
• The general health of the Islamic community was influenced by many factors:
• the dietary and fasting laws and the general rules for hygiene and burial of the different religious communities
• the climatic conditions (desert, marsh, mountain and littoral communities)
• the different living conditions of nomadic, rural, and urban populations
• local economic factors and agricultural successes or failures
• population migration and travel
• the injuries and diseases attendant upon army camps and battles
• the incidence of plague and other epidemics as well as the occurrence of endemic conditions such as trachoma and other eye diseases.
• Another important factor in the medical care given is the economic and social status of the patient
• The medical profession in general transcended the barriers of religion