Review
In etiology and pathology, the Canon described the contagious nature of infectious diseases such as phthisis and tuberculosis, the distribution of disease by water and soil, and the existence of sexually transmitted disease. The Canon provides a full understanding of the pathology of contagious disease. The Canon also distinguished between mediastinitis and pleurisy, provided careful descriptions of skin troubles, perversions, and nervous ailments." Meningitis was also first described in The Canon of Medicine, which also described the first known treatments for cancer. The book also recognized the parasitic diseases of Ascaris, Enterobius, tapeworms, and Guinea worms. Since the Canon, Bimaristan hospitals were created with separate wards for specific illnesses, so that people with contagious diseases could be kept away from other patients who do not have any contagious diseases. Bacteriology and microbiology: The Canon stated that bodily secretions are contaminated by "foul foreign earthly bodies" before a person becomes infected, but he did not view these bodies as primary causes of disease. Cancer therapy: In cancer therapy, the Canon recognized cancer as a tumor. He noted that a "cancerous tumour progressively increases in size, is destructive and spreads roots which insinuate themselves amongst the tissue elements." He also attempted the earliest known treatments for cancer. One method he discovered was the "Hindiba", a herbal compound drug which Ibn al-Baitar later identified as having "anticancer" properties and which could also treat other tumors and neoplastic disorders. After recognizing its usefulness in treating neoplastic disorders, Hindiba was patented in 1997 by Nil Sari, Hanzade Dogan, and John K. Snyder. The preferred medication the Canon recommended for skin cancer and skin conditions in general was zinc oxide. Another method for treating cancer first described in the Canon was a surgical treatment. It stated that the excision should be radical and that all diseased tissue should be removed, which included the use of amputation or the removal of veins running in the direction of the tumor. He also recommended the use of cauterization for the area being treated if necessary. However, the Canon notes that surgery should only be used as a last resort and that caution should be taken, pointing out that "most of the time, excision increases the cancer." The Canon was also the first to describe the symptoms of esophageal cancer and the first to refer to it as "cancer of the esophagus." Hepatology: The advances of the Canon in hepatology includes its introduction of new methods of hepatitis treatment. Quarantine: The Canon introduced quarantine as a means of limiting the spread of contagious diseases. --enotes, The Canon of Medicine, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License --enotes, The Canon of Medicine, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Humours and temperaments: Four Humours: The Canon of Medicine supports the ancient theory of Four Humours, but refines in various ways. In disease pathogenesis, for example, Avicenna "added his own view of different types of spirits (or vital life essences) and souls, whose disturbances might lead to bodily diseases because of a close association between them and such master organs as the brain and heart. An element of such belief is apparent in the chapter of al-Lawa" which relates "the manifestations to an interruption of vital life essence to the brain." He combined his own view with that of the Four Humours to establish a new doctrine to explain the mechanisms of various diseases in another work --enotes, The Canon of Medicine, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Humours and temperaments: Four Humours: The Canon of Medicine supports the ancient theory of Four Humours, but refines in various ways. In disease pathogenesis, for example, Avicenna "added his own view of different types of spirits (or vital life essences) and souls, whose disturbances might lead to bodily diseases because of a close association between them and such master organs as the brain and heart. An element of such belief is apparent in the chapter of al-Lawa" (see Cardiology section), which relates "the manifestations to an interruption of vital life essence to the brain." He combined his own view with that of the Four Humours to establish a new doctrine to explain the mechanisms of various diseases in another work he wrote, Treatise on Pulse: From mixture of the four [humors] in different weights, God the most high created different organs; one with more blood like muscle, one with more black bile like bone, one with more phlegm like brain, and one with more yellow bile like lung. God the most high created the souls from the softness of humors; each soul has it own weight and amalgamation. The generation and nourishment of proper soul takes place in the heart; it resides in the heart and arteries, and is transmitted from the heart to the organs through the arteries. At first, it [proper soul] enters the master organs such as the brain, liver or reproductive organs; from there it goes to other organs while the nature of the soul is being modified in each [of them]. As long as [the soul] is in the heart, it is quite warm, with the nature of fire, and the softness of bile is dominant. Then, that part which goes to the brain to keep it vital and functioning, becomes colder and wetter, and in its composition the serous softness and phlegm vapor dominate. That part, which enters the liver to keep its vitality and functions, becomes softer, warmer and sensibly wet, and in its composition the softness of air and vapor of blood dominate. In general, there are four types of proper spirit: One is brutal spirit residing in the heart and it is the origin of all spirits. Another as physicians refer to it is sensual spirit residing in the brain. The third as physicians refer to it is natural spirit residing in the liver. The fourth is generative i.e. procreative spirits residing in the gonads. These four spirits go-between the soul of absolute purity and the body of absolute impurity. Four Temperaments: The Canon also adopted the ancient theory of Four Temperaments and extended it to encompass "emotional aspects, mental capacity, moral attitudes, self-awareness, movements and dreams." Neurosciences and psychology: In Islamic psychology and neurosciences, the Canon noted the close relationship between emotions and the physical condition, and the author felt that music had a definite physical and psychological effect on patients. --enotes, The Canon of Medicine, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Clinical psychology and psychotherapy: In clinical psychology and psychotherapy, Avicenna often used psychological methods to treat his patients. One such case study is when a prince of Persia had melancholia and suffered from the delusion that he is a cow, and who would low like a cow crying "Kill me so that a good stew may be made of my flesh" and would never eat anything. Avicenna was persuaded to the case and sent a message to the patient, asking him to be happy as the butcher was coming to slaughter him, and the sick man rejoiced. When Avicenna approached the prince with a knife in his hand, he asked "where is the cow so I may kill it." The patient then lowed like a cow to indicate where he was. "By order of the butcher, the patient was also laid on the ground for slaughter." When Avicenna approached the patient pretending to slaughter him, he said, "the cow is too lean and not ready to be killed. He must be fed properly and I will kill it when it becomes healthy and fat." The patient was then offered food which he ate eagerly and gradually "gained strength, got rid of his delusion, and was completely cured." Among the many other psychological disorders described in the Qanun, one is of unusual interest: love sickness. Ibn Sina is reputed to have diagnosed this condition in a Prince in Jurjan who lay sick and whose malady had baffled local doctors. He noted a fluttering in the Prince's pulse when the address and name of his beloved were mentioned. The great doctor had a simple remedy: unite the sufferer with the beloved. Neurology and neuropathology: The book's contributions in neurology and neuropathology include its diagnosis of facial nerve paralysis, its distinction between brain paralysis and hyperaemia, and most importantly the discovery of meningitis. It diagnosed meningitis as a disease induced by the brain itself and differentiated it from infectious brain disease, and its author was also able to diagnose and describe the type of meningitis induced by an infection in other parts of the body. Neuropsychiatry and neuropsychology: The Canon was a pioneering text in neuropsychiatry and neuropsychology. It first described the neuropsychiatric conditions of hallucination, insomnia, mania, nightmare, melancholia, dementia, epilepsy, paralysis, stroke, vertigo and tremor. Three chapters of The Canon of Medicine were dedicated to neuropsychiatry. The book defined madness (Junun) as a mental condition in which reality is replaced by fantasy, and discovered that it is a disorder of reason with its origin in the middle part of the brain. It also described a condition resembling schizophrenia which it referred to as Junun Mufrit (severe madness), which was clearly distinguished from other forms of madness such as mania, rabies, and manic depressive psychosis. The author observed that patients suffering from schizophrenia-like severe madness show agitation, behavioural and sleep disturbance, give inappropriate answers to questions, and in some cases are incapable of speaking at times. The book states that such patients need to be restrained, in order to avoid any harm they may cause to themselves or to others. A chapter of the Canon was also dedicated to mania and rabies. It described mania as bestial madness characterized by rapid onset and remission, with agitation and irritability, and described rabies as a type of mania. --enotes, The Canon of Medicine, Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
About the Author
Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn Sina is better known in Europe by the Latinized name Avicenna. He is probably the most significant philosopher in the Islamic tradition and arguably the most influential philosopher of the pre-modern era. Born in Afshana near Bukhara in Central Asia in about 980, he is best known as a polymath, as a physician whose major work the Canon (al-Qanun fi'l-Tibb) continued to be taught as a medical textbook in Europe and in the Islamic world until the early modern period, and as a philosopher whose major summa the Cure (al-Shifa') had a decisive impact upon European scholasticism and especially upon Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274). Primarily a metaphysical philosopher of being who was concerned with understanding the self s existence in this world in relation to its contingency, Ibn Sina s philosophy is an attempt to construct a coherent and comprehensive system that accords with the religious exigencies of Muslim culture. As such, he may be considered to be the first major Islamic philosopher. The philosophical space that he articulates for God as the Necessary Existence lays the foundation for his theories of the soul, intellect and cosmos. Furthermore, he articulated a development in the philosophical enterprise in classical Islam away from the apologetic concerns for establishing the relationship between religion and philosophy towards an attempt to make philosophical sense of key religious doctrines and even analyse and interpret the Qur an. Recent studies have attempted to locate him within the Aristotelian and Neoplatonic traditions. His relationship with the latter is ambivalent: although accepting some keys aspects such as an emanationist cosmology, he rejected Neoplatonic epistemology and the theory of the pre-existent soul. However, his metaphysics owes much to the Amonnian synthesis of the later commentators on Aristotle and discussions in legal theory and kalam on meaning, signification and being. Apart from philosophy, Avicenna s other contributions lie in the fields of medicine, the natural sciences, musical theory, and mathematics. In the Islamic sciences ('ulum), he wrote a series of short commentaries on selected Qur anic verses and chapters that reveal a trained philosopher s hermeneutical method and attempt to come to terms with revelation. He also wrote some literary allegories about whose philosophical value recent scholarship is vehemently at odds. His influence in medieval Europe spread through the translations of his works first undertaken in Spain. In the Islamic world, his impact was immediate and led to what Michot has called la pandémie avicennienne. When al-Ghazali led the theological attack upon the heresies of the philosophers, he singled out Avicenna, and a generation later when the Shahrastani gave an account of the doctrines of the philosophers of Islam, he relied upon the work of Avicenna, whose metaphysics he later attempted to refute in his Struggling against the Philosophers (Musari'at al-falasifa). Avicennan metaphysics became the foundation for discussions of Islamic philosophy and philosophical theology. In the early modern period in Iran, his metaphysical positions began to be displayed by a creative modification that they underwent due to the thinkers of the school of Isfahan, in particular Mulla Sadra (d. 1641).
-- Rizvi, Sajjad H. "Avicenna (Ibn Sina)" Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (January 2006)
