Details of the Kitab Qanun fi’l-Tibb to be housed at the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto November 21, 2006
Ibn Sina, Abu Ali al-Husain bin Abd Allah (Avicenna), Kitab Qanun fi’l-Tibb (The Canon of Medicine), volume 5 (on compound drugs and pharmacopoeia), Arabic manuscript on paper, Iran or Mesopotamia, dated A.H.444/A.D.1052 82 leaves, 20 lines per page written in clear naskhi script in brown ink on buff paper, significant words written in larger, bolder thuluth in brown ink and in small naskhi and larger thuluth in red ink, catchwords in black in margins, eight leaves with paper repairs slightly affecting text area, opening title page decorated with a central shamsa in red, yellow and brown, final folio defective at edges, re-guarded, modern brown morocco
212 by 164mm.
This is an extraordinarily rare manuscript of volume 5 of Ibn Sina’s ‘Qanun fi’l-Tibb’, written only fifteen years after the death of the author himself. It is a remarkably early fragment of perhaps the most influential single text in the history of medicine. It is probably the earliest extant manuscript of any part of this seminal work.
Written within two decades of the author’s death, the present manuscript appears to be the earliest dated manuscript of any part of Ibn Sina’s Qanun, and while it has not been possible to check every single library in the world, an exhaustive search of the major sources (including Brockelmann, Sezgin, the World Survey of Islamic Manuscripts and catalogues of specific libraries such as the Wellcome Institute in London) has revealed no other complete copy or fragment this early. The Muzah-i Kilisa-yi Araminah Library in Isfahan contains a copy listed as ‘11th century’, but it is not specifically dated (see World Survey, vol.I, p.476). The earliest fragment in the library of the Wellcome Institute for the History of Medicine in London is dated 729/1328, although they also own an undated fragment listed as ‘7th/13th century’ (see Iskandar, 1967, pp.161163). Indeed, the next earliest manuscript appears to be a fragment dated A.H.466/A.D.1073, Sold [at Sotheby’s], 17 October 1983. The early date is an essential factor in the significance of the present manuscript, since its nearness to Ibn Sina’s original has left little opportunity for adulteration of the text or for mistakes by copyists to creep in.
Biography Ibn Sina was born in 370/980 in Afshana near Bukhara. His native
language was Persian, but, like the majority of scholars of the period, he wrote in Arabic. His father was an official in the Samanid government and Ibn Sina was given a good education, although he is said to have surpassed his teachers by the age of fourteen. Having cured the Amir of Khurasan of a severe illness, he was given access to the extensive library of the Samanid Princes. During his life he was resident in several cities in Iran, and reportedly met the great encyclopaedist al-Biruni while he was at Jurjan. The latter part of his life was spent at Isfahan. He died during an expedition to Hamadan in 428/1037.
The importance of ibn sina’s qanun
Ibn Sina, known as Avicenna in the west, can be regarded as the most influential writer in the history of medicine. Such was the usefulness of his Qanun that, from its origins in the early 11th century in western Iran, it was used all over the Middle East and Europe as the standard medical textbook for a period of seven centuries. It was translated in its entirety into Latin by Gerard of Cremona between 1150-87 and a total of eighty-seven translations were subsequently made. It formed the basis of medical teaching at all European universities and appears in the oldest known syllabus of teaching, that of the Medical School of Montpellier in 1309. It was printed in Arabic at Rome in 1593 and several eminent western physicians learned Arabic solely to read Avicenna in the original. He specifically influenced such luminaries as Henrik Harpestraeng, the royal Danish physician who died in 1244, Arnold of Villeneuve, William of Saliceto, Lanfranc, the founder of surgery in France, and Guy of Chauliac. His ubiquity is well manifested by the fact that Chaucer, in the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, mentions that no good doctor should be ignorant of his work. In the last thirty years of the 15th century, sixteen editions were issued. During the 16th century it was re-issued more than twenty times. It was not until Vesalius and Harvey had revolutionised medicine that Ibn Sina’s influence began to wane. The secret of the Qanun’s long popularity lay both in Ibn Sina’s clear
and lucid description and diagnosis, and in the fact that he gathered together, in one work, the myriad and scattered doctrines of Hippocrates, Galen, Aristotle, the other ancients and previous Oriental physicians. Essentially, it was the most complete encyclopaedic corpus of medieval medical knowledge. The Qanun contains around a million words and is divided into five books. The first is introductory and deals with anatomy, the humours, temperament, and the effect of environment on health and disease. The second deals with
materia medica, its uses, toxic properties and side-effects. The third deals with specific pathology and diseases of various parts of the body. The fourth concerns general pathology, fevers, leprosy, surgery, dislocations and fractures. The fifth (the present text) describes and explains pharmacopoeias and theraputic drugs.
As well as gathering the totality of current medical knowledge, Ibn Sina was a brilliant physician and diagnostic. He was already widely known for his medical prowess at the age of sixteen and by the age of eighteen had mastered all the known sciences. The following is a brief list of some of the profound discoveries and observations he made,
many of which were remarkably advanced and have uncanny relevance to medicine and society in the late 20th century:
He described tetanus and pleurisy, and the contagious aspects of tuberculosis.
He discussed cancers, and their surgical removal.
He attributed stomach ulcers to psychological factors (including tension and depression) and to physical factors affecting the stomach.
He recognised the contagious nature of phthisis.
He accurately described meningitis, differentiating between meningitis proper and meningismus.
He was the first physician to suggest the treatment for lachrymal fistula.
He attributed infections to traces left in the air by the sick.
He used quarantine to control infectious diseases.
He discussed water-borne diseases.
He recognised the close relation between the emotional and the physical in human ailments.
He recommended the holistic approach to medicine.
He described the physiology of sleep.
He affirmed the importance of purifying drinking water.
He recognised the influence of climate on health.
He discussed the importance of diatetics.
He was the first to minutely describe the different parts of the eye, including the conjunctive sclera, the cornea, the choroid, the iris, the retina, the layer lens, the aqueous humour, the optic nerve and the optic chiasm.
He observed that the aorta at its root consisted of three one-way valves.
He asserts that muscular movements are possible because of the nerves supplied to them and the perception of pain in muscles is also due to the nerves.
He observed that liver, spleen and kidney do not contain nerves, but the nerves are contained in the covering of these organs.
He set out a set of rules for testing new drugs, much of which is still relevant today.
As well as the sources mentioned above see also:
E.I.2 ‘Ibn Sina’
Young, Latham and Serjeant, chs.19, 23.
Nasr, pp.178-9.
http://search.sothebys.com/jsps/live/lo ... _lot_id=22
Kitab Qanun fi’l-Tibb to be housed at the Aga Khan Museum, T
Historical Images: Ibn Sina and His Canon of Medicine
December 16, 2012
By Malik Merchant, Simergphotos
http://simergphotos.com/2012/12/16/hist ... -medicine/
December 16, 2012
By Malik Merchant, Simergphotos
http://simergphotos.com/2012/12/16/hist ... -medicine/
Ibn Sina’s 1038th Birthday
August 7, 2018
One of the pre-modern world’s most influential philosophers, Ibn Sina (sometimes known as “Avicenna” in the West) was born in the year 980, during what’s now known as the Islamic Golden Age.
Ibn Sina grew up in Afšana, a village near Bukhara, near present-day Uzbekistan. A self-taught polymath, Ibn Sina learned Indian arithmetic from an Indian grocer. He continued to pursue learning throughout his life, undertaking an intense study of Aristotle’s Metaphysics when he was in his teens, and studying medicine from the age of 16 (reportedly finding this subject “easy”).
A writer in a wide range of fields, Ibn Sina authored 131 books, the most influential of which is the monumental Al Qanun fil-Tibb, ‘The Canon of Medicine.’ This pioneering study was translated into Latin in the 12th century, and became the predominant text used in European medical courses until the 17th century. The first work to identify contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, to hypothesize that soil and water spread sickness, and to set forth the basics of anatomy, pediatrics, and gynecology, the ‘Canon’ is now credited as forming the basis of Western medicine.
Today’s Doodle celebrates Ibn Sina: a life devoted to education and the spirit of learning for the betterment of humankind.
Doodle by Cynthia Yuan Cheng
https://www.google.com/doodles/ibn-sina ... h-birthday
August 7, 2018
One of the pre-modern world’s most influential philosophers, Ibn Sina (sometimes known as “Avicenna” in the West) was born in the year 980, during what’s now known as the Islamic Golden Age.
Ibn Sina grew up in Afšana, a village near Bukhara, near present-day Uzbekistan. A self-taught polymath, Ibn Sina learned Indian arithmetic from an Indian grocer. He continued to pursue learning throughout his life, undertaking an intense study of Aristotle’s Metaphysics when he was in his teens, and studying medicine from the age of 16 (reportedly finding this subject “easy”).
A writer in a wide range of fields, Ibn Sina authored 131 books, the most influential of which is the monumental Al Qanun fil-Tibb, ‘The Canon of Medicine.’ This pioneering study was translated into Latin in the 12th century, and became the predominant text used in European medical courses until the 17th century. The first work to identify contagious diseases such as tuberculosis, to hypothesize that soil and water spread sickness, and to set forth the basics of anatomy, pediatrics, and gynecology, the ‘Canon’ is now credited as forming the basis of Western medicine.
Today’s Doodle celebrates Ibn Sina: a life devoted to education and the spirit of learning for the betterment of humankind.
Doodle by Cynthia Yuan Cheng
https://www.google.com/doodles/ibn-sina ... h-birthday