ARABIAN MEDICINE

The indigenous medicine of Arabia, which is known to present day world, is principally from the Greek version. The nature of the impact of this system of medicine in Arabia on Greek is obscure.

Alexandria holds a separate identity as far as the medical field is concerned. It would not be correct to describe medicine in Alexandria as a mere continuation of the Hippocratic medicine of Greece. The Alexandrian chapter of Greek medicine dates back to Herophilus of Chalcedon around 300 B.C. The Herophilus School accepted the Hippocratic theory of the four Humours, the Greek anatomy and pulse examination. By about 290 B.C. Erasistratus of Chios, who was a physician and surgeon, challenged the Hippocratic theory and thus paved the way for a new line of development. The medical knowledge of Alexandria touched its very acme during 220 B.C. and the empirical outlook represented by Serapion of Alexandria dominated it. Though Alexandrian writings were more numerous, methodical, empirical and rational than their Athenian predecessors, their glory was short-lived. The excellent library of Alexandria was destroyed when the armies of Julius Caesar attacked the town (48-47 B.C.). The physicians, surgeons, medical writers and translators lost their academic background when Roman ascendancy was felt in Egypt. Alexandrian medicine shifted its base to Rome. The later medical schools got a Greco Roman outlook during the first century A.D.

During the 02^nd century A.D., Alexandria was gifted, by the birth, of medical genius called Claudius Galen (AD -131-200), who wrote about 500 Treatises on the medical subject and he became a well-known authority for well over a thousand years. He was the Royal physician to Antonine Emperor. He contributed the concept of three-fold Pneuma (spirit). According to Galen, the Pneuma was constantly renewed in the body from breathing the air through the lungs and seeking it through the skin pores. This constant renewal made possible, the continuance of vital functions. He distinguished between the 'natural pneuma', 'the vital pneuma', and the 'animal pneuma', which together constituted the foundation for the physiological system. The main drawback of Galen was his therapeutics was closely modelled after that of Hypocrites.

A combination of Galen's theory and Hypocrites practice became the essential framework of Arabian medicine. After the fall of the Roman Empire, physicians, surgeons first flocked in Constantinople and then spread to Mesopotamia, Persia and Arabia. The east mainly or Nestorians who established the Greek medical theory and practice in Persia became the immediate background of Arabian medicine. Nestoris, the Syrian monk who was the patriarch of Constantinople translated Greek works into Syrian. He fled to Persia in A.D. 428 to escape religious prosecution. The pro-Greek Nestorian school ceased to function around A.D. 480 due to socio-political reasons. The epicenter of Arabian medicine then shifted to Jundi-Shapur and later this was shifted to Baghdad where Abdulla Abdul Abbas established Abbasid Caliphate by around A.D. 750. The second Calipah, Al-Mansur Abu Jafer established a medical centre there on the lines of the Jundi-Shapur centre. During the regime of the three Caliphs - Al Mansur, Harun-ul-Rashid and Al-A-min, Baghdad became a famous centre for physicians and surgeons. Translations of Greek classics like Corpus Hippocraticum, Greco Roman manuals like Galen's works and Sanskrit treatises like Charaka Samhita, Susrutha Samhita, Madhavanidana, Astanga Hridya and Astanga Samgraha. The celebrated translators of these works were Jurjes, Yuhanna (A.D. 777 - 857) also known as Janus Damascenes and his student Abu Sayad Hunayn.