- Modern medicine owes much to the scholars of the medieval
Islamic world, who pioneered the diagnosis and treatment of human disease,
a science historian told the conference.
-
- The very first hospitals were built around AD800 in Baghdad
and they were much more sophisticated than the simple monastic hospices
that grew up in Western Europe several hundred years later, said Emilie
Savage-Smith of St Cross College in Oxford.
-
- The largest Islamic hospitals were built in Egypt and
Syria in the 12th and 13th centuries. Patients were treated in wards dedicated
to different illnesses, such as gastrointestinal complaints, eye ailments
and fevers. "The establishment of an extensive system of hospitals
was one of the greatest achievements of medieval Islamic society. It was
in the context of these hospitals that the teaching of medicine at bedside
was first introduced by Arabic-speaking physicians of the 10th century,"
Dr Savage-Smith said.
-
- "In Islam there is a moral imperative to treat all
the ill regardless of their financial status. These hospitals were open
to all, male and female, civilian and military, rich and poor, Muslims
and non- Muslims." The hospitals had several purposes: as a centre
of medical treatment, a convalescent home for those recovering from illness
or accident, an insane asylum and a retirement home giving basic maintenance
needs for the aged and infirm who lacked a family to care for them.
-
- As well as translating and interpreting the works of
classical Greek medicine, Islamic scholars wrote a vast medical reference
library to understand disease, pain, injuries and childbearing.They described
infectious diseases such as smallpox and eye conditions such as catar-acts
and successfully did minor operations such as tonsillectomies.
-
- For a thousand years, Islamic physicians kept alive the
traditions of classical medicine from Greece and Rome.
-
- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
-
- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=442206
|
