PROPHETIC MEDICINE

• A genre of medical writing called “al-tibb al-nabawi”
• Authors were clerics – some more religiously inclined than others
• Advocated the medicine available in Muhammad’s day
• Acceptable to the religiously orthodox
• Therapy consisted of diet and simple drugs (especially honey), bloodletting, and cautery, but no surgery.
• Other topics included fevers, leprosy, plague, poisonous bites, protection from night-flying insects, protection against the evil eye, rules for coitus, theories of embryology, proper conduct of physicians, and treatment of minor illnesses such as headaches, nosebleed, cough and colic.
• It was prohibited to drink wine or use soporific drugs as medicaments.
• The treatises also provided numerous prayers and pious invocations to be used by the devout patient, with the occasional amulet and talisman, and they were particularly popular in the 13th to 15th centuries, with some still available today in modern printings.