IMPORTANT MEDICAL WRITERS

• `Ali ibn al-`Abbas al-Majusi (d. 994/384 H) was born into a Zoroastrian family from the Iranian city of Ahwaz about the time of al-Razi's death. Al-Majusi practiced medicine in Baghdad and served as physician to the ruler `Adud al-Dawlah, founder of the `Adudi hospital in Baghdad.
• He wrote The Complete Book Of The Medical Art
• He divided his encyclopedia into two large books, one on theoretical principles and the other on practical aspects.
• Abu `Ali al-Husayn ibn `Abd Allah ibn Sina, known to Europe as Avicenna. He was born in 980 (370 H) in Central Asia and traveled widely in the eastern Islamic lands, composing nearly 270 different treatises. When he died in 1037 (428 H) he was known as one of the greatest philosophers in Islam, and in medicine was so highly regarded that he was compared to Galen.
• Wrote The Cannon of Medicine
• The large comprehensive Arabic encyclopedia rivaled the popularity of al-Majusi's compendium and in many quarters surpassed it.
• He divided his treatise into 5 books
• general medical principles
• materia medica
• diseases occurring in a particular part of the body
• diseases not specific to one bodily part (such as fevers)
• a formulary giving recipes for compound remedies
• Ibn Sina in general excelled in logical assessment of a condition and the comparison of symptoms.
• Analgesics (mukhaddirat) abate the pain, he says, because they destroy the sensation of that part, which they accomplish either through hypercooling or by means of a toxic property. Of the analgesics, the most powerful he considered to be opium, and then mandrake, two varieties of poppy, henbane, hemlock, the soporific black nightshade, and lettuce seeds; he also included cold water and ice among the analgesics
• No need for extreme measures to relieve pain – concerned with massage, the application of hot compresses, the use of a hot-water bottle…