TRANSMISSION OF GRECO-ARABIC MEDICINE TO EUROPE

Henry A. Azar, MD PhD

Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Rome at its Greatest Extent

98-117 AD

from Burns, Lerner, Meecham Western Civilization

Major Developments in Islam622 Beginning of Hegira (lunar) year632-661 Vast Arab conquests in the Near East, central Asia and North Africa 661-670 Umayyad caliphate in Damascus; conquest of Spain (711)750-1258 Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad

Umayyad dynasty in Cordoba (756-1031)910-1171 Fatimid caliphate of Cairoca. 1000 Rise of Persian and Turkish sultanates1095 First Crusade declared by Pope Urban II (last Crusade in 1270)1258 Baghdad sacked by Mongols1281-1922 Ottoman Turkish rule (Safavids in Persia, Mughals in India)1453 Constantinople conquered by Ottoman Turks1492 Granada, last Islamic kingdom in Spain, conquered

by Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon

Early Translations by Nestorians

Nestorians migrated from the Byzantine Empire to Persia. There, they fostered Syriac and Greek learning in Jundishapur, just before the Arab invasion. Nestorian scholars later moved to Baghdad. Dar-al-Hikma (House of Wisdom) created in Baghdad in 830.Hunayn ibn Ishaq (d. 873) or Johannitius, an Arab Nestorian from southern Iraq, undertook massive translations of medical and scientific books from the Greek or Syriac to the Arabic. He also wrote Masail (or Isagogue), a popular medical manual which was later translated into Latin and became a part of the Articella—a required reading in the West. There were also many other Nestorian and Syriac (Monophysite) translators. Nearly all books attributed to Hippocrates and Galen were translated and condensed. Names of pagan gods were replaced with Allah.

Eastern Arabic Medicine

Hunayn ibn Ishaq or Johannitius (d. 873), Nestorian from Hira, IraqMasail (Isagogue); On the EyeNumerous translations of Galen’s books

Al-Razi or Rhazes of Rayy, Persian, d. ca. 925Kitab al-Hawi (Lat. Continens); vast clinical experienceOn Smallpox and Measles

Al-Magusi or Haly Abbas of Ahwaz, Persia, d. 934K. Kamel al-Sina`a (Lat. Pantegni)One of the first books (with Isagogue) to be translated into Latin

Ibn Sina or Avicenna of Tashkent, d. 1037Al-Qanun (Canon), a popular medical text taught in Europe up to the seventeenth century, also put into a poem

Ibn al-Nafis, born near Damascus, fl. In Cairo, d. 1288. Commentary on Ibn Sina’s Anatomy; description of lesser circulation

Ibn Sina’s Qanun (Lat. Canon)

Al-Qanun, Ibn Sina’s medical

opus magnum; 5 books:Book I: On “universals,” a systematic survey of medical theory, etiology, hygiene, therapy and surgery

Book II: simple drugs

Book III: diseases arranged from head to toe

Book IV: some general conditions

Book V: compound drugs

Gerard of Cremona translated the book into Latin in Toledo; the Canon became a required reading up to the 17th century.

Western (Spanish) Arabic Medicine

Al-Zahrawi or Albucasis of Cordoba, d. 1013,

first major physician-surgeon of Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus)

K. al-Tasrif, lat. L. alsaharavi de cirurgia, one of the first books translated into Latin in Toledo; profusely quoted by European physicians

Ibn Zuhr or Avenzoar of Seville, d. 1162K. al-Iqtisad (Book of Moderation), an imitation of Galen

K.al-Aghdhia (Book on Aliments), a complete regimen of health

K. al-Taysir (Book of Facilitation), a manual of therapeutics translated into Hebrew and Latin; a companion book to Averroes’s Colliget

Ibn Rushd or Averroes of Cordoba, d. 1198K. al-Kulliyyat (On Universals, Lat. Colliget); Commentaries on Aristotle

Ibn Maymun or Maimonides of Cordoba, d. 1204 in Egypt; Aphorisms, Regimen Sanitatis; Guide to the Perplexed

Arabic to Latin Translations of Medical Texts

Texts on mathematics and anatomy first translated ca. 1050 in Barcelona and northern Spain with help of Jewish scholars

Monte Cassino Benedictine Monastery: Constantine the African. (d. 1087) translated Johannitius’s Isagogue and Haly Abbas’s Pantegni.

Toledo: translations patronized by Archbishop Raymond and his successors. Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187); traduction-à-deux with a Romance pre-Castilian dialect used as a “bridge” language

Montpellier: Arnold of Villanova and nephew Armangaud Blaise collaborated with Ibn Tibbon family (originally from Granada)

Padua/Venice: John of Capua and Jacob the Hebrew translated Ibn Zuhr K. al-Taysir and Maimonides’s medical texts

Sicily: Rhazes’s al-Hawi translated by Faraj ben Salim at the request of Charles d’Anjou

Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar)’s Taysir

Ibn Zuhr’s late work and corpus magnum

Companion book to Ibn Rushd’s (Averroes) theoretical K. al-Kulliyyat

Primarily a manual of therapeutics

A vast array of diseases arranged from head to toe

Important (probable) first-case reports

Extensive botanical materia medica

Elements of esoteric practices

Reliance on personal experience and experimentation

Extensive parasitology

Latin Translation of the Taysir (Liber teisir)

An example of traduction-à-deux:

K. al-Taysir translated into Latin by John of Capua, a master from Padua, with the help of Jacob the Hebrew (alias the Anonymous) in Venice in 1281.

First printed in Venice in 1490

Hebrew translation

Undated, unsigned MS.OR 4719 (Leiden), ex legato illustris viri Josephi Scaligeri (1540-1609);

Note the vast number of terms [ ] borrowed from the Arabic

The Greco-Arabic Medical Legacy

Tradition of non-clerical learning--based on Hippocratic-Galenic teachings and cumulative Near–Eastern wisdom of the ages Strong-faith inspired medical ethics:

Hippocratic Oath considered a covenant with God;Taboos against poisons and abortions (first do no harm; respect for life);No autopsies; no mutilation of the dead.

Persistence of esoteric or quasi-magical therapy; astro-medicineSurgery, a “lower manual profession;” women’s diseases treated by midwivesArabic contributions to medicine: additions to knowledge of pathology, parasitology, contagion, materia medica; description of lesser circulation, anatomy and physiology of the eye, chemical techniques

In Conclusion

The transmission of Greco-Arabic medicine to Europe took a circuitous route with Nestorians translating from the Greek or Syriac to the Arabic. Three centuries later, Jewish scholars collaborated with new converts to Christianity in translations from the Arabic or Hebrew to the Latin.

Between the 9th to the 13th centuries, Arabic was the major language of medicine and science. With the advent of the printing press, Latin replaced Arabic. By the 18th century, modern European languages (French, German, Italian, and English) replaced Latin.

Arabic medicine was not simply a passive rendition of Greek knowledge; however, its achievements are far less impressive than

Arabic contributions to the sciences and technology.

Select Bibliography

Consult Encyclopoedia of Islam and Dictionary of Scientific Bibliography under specific names

Manfred Ullmann, Islamic Medicine, Islamic Surveys 11 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978).

Lawence I. Conrad, “The Arab-Islamic Medical Tradition,” in L. I. Conrad et al., The Western Medical Traditions 800 AD to 1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995,” pp. 93-138.

David W. Tschanz, The Arab Roots of European Medicine, 1993

www.erols.com/gmqm/euromed1.html

Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine, 2000

www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/getstarted.html

Credits

Edward McNall Burns et al, Western Civilization, 10th edition, vol.1 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1984):

The Roman Empire

The Expansion of Islam

Ralph H. Major, A History of Medicine, vol. 1 (Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1954):

Avicenna’s Canon (Rome, 1593)

Manuscripts:

K. al-Taysir, BN 2960 (Paris) made in Barcelona in 1167

Liber teisir, printed in Venice 1490, held NLM (Bethesda)

Hebrew version of K. al-Taysir, OR 4719 (Leiden), undated