ARAB TIMES, FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2013

ISSUES 12 Scientists of the Islamic world Abu Al-Qasim greatest medieval surgeon

This is a six-part series of articles gery were also included. ures and drug substitution. Relationship with students The first two treatises were translat- on Arab and Muslim scientists written Surgical procedures Printing on tablets In his book, Al-Zahrawi expressed ed into Latin as Liber Theoricae, which by different professors of the was printed in Augusburg in 1519. In Department of Mathematics and Not always properly credited, Abu Al-Zahrawi is also considered to be his concern about the welfare of his students whom he called “my chil- them Al-Zahrawi classified 325 dis- Natural Sciences of Gulf University Al-Qasim’s Al-Tasrif described both the founder and first pilot for the print- eases and discussed their symptomatol- for Science and Technology — Editor what would later became known as ing industry, and industry of tablets; dren”. ❑ ❑ ❑ His advice to his students before ogy and treatment. In page 145 of this “Kocher’s method” for treating a dis- where the name of the drug is printed Lain translation he described, for the located shoulder and “Walcher posi- on each disk. doing any surgery is, that they By Dr Fawaz Azizieh should not do it unless they are first time in medical history, a haemor- tion” in obstetrics. Al-Tasrif He developed the first step in print- rhagic disease transmitted by unaffect- Assistant Professor of Biology described how to ligature blood ves- ing industry several centuries before familiar in all related matters as well Department of Math and Science as in anatomy and the use of surgical ed women to their male children, today sels almost 600 years before the German John Gothenburg. His idea we call it haemophilia. Gulf University for Science & AmbroiseParé, and was the first of printing was stated out in the twen- instruments. Of all the contents of Al-Zahrawis Technology (GUST) recorded book to document several ty-eighth article of his book. For the He said: “You should be aware that dental devices. He also described the first time in the history of medicine and the work by hand (surgery) is divided Al-Tasrif, book 30 on surgery became bu Al-Qasim Khalaf Ibn Al-Abbas exposure and division of the temporal pharmacy, Al-Zahrawi described how into two parts: the work accompanied the most famous and had by far the AAl-Zahrawi (936-1013), also artery to relieve certain types of to make grains (tablets), and how to by safety, and the work to be with it widest and the greatest influence. known in the West as Abulcasis, was an headaches, diversion of urine into the make a template into which these are damage in most cases. I have alerted Translated into Latin by Gerard of Andalusian Arab Moslem physician. rectum, reduction mammoplasty for prepared, with printing their names at everywhere in this book from work in Cremona (1114-1187), it went into at He is considered the greatest medieval excessively large breasts and the the same time. He used a slab of ebony which to be with damage and fear. You least ten Latin editions between 1497 surgeon to have appeared from the extraction of cataracts. He wrote or ivory split in half in length, and should refuse it and avoid it. Take for and 1544, before it was translated into Abu Al-Qasim Khalaf Ibn Al-Abbas yourselves firmness and prudence, and French, Hebrew, and English. The last Islamic World, and one of the fathers of Al-Zahrawi extensively about injuries to bones engraved on the bottom of a double- modern surgery. His comprehensive and joints, even mentioning fractures sided disc the name of medicine to be for your patients with kindness, and use edition was that of John Channing in medical texts shaped both Islamic and Part I of Kitab Al-Tasrif by Al- of the nasal bones and of the verte- made, printed in reverse, so that the the best way that leads to safety and Oxford (1778), which contained both European surgical procedures up until Zahrawi. The page shows his definition brae pattern is true at the exit from the mold. commendable end.” the original Arabic text and its Latin the Renaissance. His greatest contribu- of medicine as the restoration of health He stated that this will prevent fraud in Reception translation of alternate pages. Almost tion to history is the Kitab Al-Tasrif, a Surgical instruments all European authors of surgical texts in healthy individuals and its restora- the pharmaceuticals and be subject to Al-Tasrif was later translated into thirty-volume encyclopedia of medical tion to sick individuals as much as pos- Abu Al-Qasim also introduced his medical observation. from the 12th to the 16th centuries practices. This encyclopedia was used famous collection of over 200 surgical Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the referred to Al-Zahrawi’s surgery and sible by human abilities. instruments such as scalpels, curettes, Contributions to ethical norms 12thcentury. For perhaps five centuries as standard reference work in the sub- He expressed his credo in his book copied from him. retractors, spoons, sounds, hooks, rods, Artistic scene of Al-Zahrawi treating during the European Middle Ages, it Extract form the Arabic text of Al- ject in all universities of Europe for by writing: “Whatever I know, I owe and specula. Many of these instruments a patient while students look on. was the primary source for European Tasrif as published in De chirurgia. over five hundred years. solely to my assiduous reading of Abu Al-Qasim was born in the city were never used before by any previ- Source: Wellcome Library, London. medical knowledge, and served as a It is clear from Al-Zahrawi’s life his- books of the ancients, to my desire to reference for doctors and surgeons. of El-Zahra, six miles northwest of ous surgeons. Doctor-patient relationship tory and from his writings that he understand them and to appropriate Page from a 1531 Latin translation In the 14th century, the French surgeon devoted his entire life and genius to the CÛrdoba, Andalusia. He was descend- Al-Zahrawi emphasized the impor- ed from the Ansar Arab tribe who set- this science; then I have added the by Peter Argellata of Al-Zahrawi’s trea- Guy de Chauliac in his ‘Great Surgery’, advancement of medicine as a whole observation and experience of my tise on surgical and medical instru- tance of a good doctor-patient relation- completed in about 1363, quoted Al- tled earlier in Spain. He lived most of ship and took great care to ensure the and surgery in particular. his life in CÛrdoba. It is also where he whole life” ments. Tasrif over 200 times. Al-Zahrawi was It is no wonder then that Al- studied, taught and practiced medicine Contributions to Surgery His use of catgut for internal stitch- safety of hispatients and win their trust described by PietroArgallata (died 1423) irrespective of their social status. Al- Zahrawi’s outstanding achievement and surgery until shortly before his ing is still practiced in modern surgery. as “without doubt the chief of all sur- awakened in Europe a hunger for The 300 pages of the book on sur- Zahrawi’s clinical methods showed geons”. JaquesDelechamps (1513-1588), death in about 1013, two years after the gery represent the first book of this size The catgut appears to be the only natu- Arabic medical literature, and thathis sacking of El-Zahra. ral substance capable of dissolving and extreme foresight - he promoted the another French surgeon, made extensive devoted solely to surgery, which at that close observation of individual cases in use of Al-Tasrif in his elaborate commen- book reached such prominence that a Kitab Al-Tasrif time also included dentistry and what is acceptable by the body. AbuAl- modern historian considered it as the Qasim also invented the forceps for order to establish the most accurate tary, confirming the great prestige of Al Abu Al-Qasim’s thirty-chapter med- one may term surgical dermatology. diagnosis and the best possible treat- Zahrawi throughout the Middle Ages and foremost textbook in Western Here, Al-Zahrawi developed all aspects extracting a dead fetus, as illustrated in Christendom. ical treatise, Kitab Al-Tasrif, completed the Al-Tasrif. ment. He insisted on compliance with up to the Renaissance. in the year 1000, covered a broad range of surgery and its various branches, ethical norms and warned against dubi- Frontispiece of the Latin translation from ophthalmology and diseases of Contributions to Pharmacology References: of medical topics, which contained data ous practices adopted by some physi- of Al-ZahrawiKitab Al-Tasrif: Liber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zahrawi that had accumulated during a career the ear, nose and throat, surgery of the In the section on pharmacology and cians for purposes of material gain. He theoricaenecnonpracticaeAlshaharavii http://www.ummah.net/history/scho that spanned almost 50 years of train- head and neck, to general surgery, therapeutics, he covered areas such as also cautioned against quacks who This is the translation of the first two lars/el_zahrawi/ ing, teaching and practice. obstetrics and gynecology. Military cardiac drugs, emetics, laxatives, cos- claimed surgical skills they did not pos- books of Al-Tasrif, edited by Paul http://muslimheritage.com/topics/d The beginning of the first article of medicine, urology and orthopaedic sur- metology, dietetics, weights and meas- sess. Ricius, 1519) efault.cfm?ArticleID=223

Inequality high Syr ia Low social status Regional, local powers take advantage of situation is bad for health By Maia Szalavitz nequality is at an all-time high in IAmerica. Since the 2008 crash, recent IRS figures show, the wealth of the top 1 Syria war stirs tensions in Tripoli percent grew 31 percent while the rest of American incomes grew by less than 1 per- cent. But although it might appear that TRIPOLI, Lebanon, Oct 31, (AFP): In income disparities affect only the poor and the impoverished Bab al-Tebbaneh have primarily an economic impact, dozens and Jabal Mohsen neighbourhoods of of studies now link extreme inequality with Lebanon’s second city Tripoli, the war poor health and shorter lives, across the in neighbouring Syria has aggravated entire socioeconomic spectrum. decades-old sectarian and political ten- Overall, the United States has among sions. the largest social and economic inequali- Regional and local powers have ties of any rich country. Japan and the Scandinavian countries have the smallest. taken advantage of the situation, arm- The more equal countries also have the ing poor fighters in the neighbour- longest life expectancies — and the rich- hoods to fight a proxy war over Syria. est American men only have the life Jabal Mohsen, where most of the expectancy of an average Japanese man, population belongs to President which is 4.5 years longer than the US Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect, has average, according to Sir Michael long backed the Damascus regime. Marmot, a leading researcher on inequal- Majority-Sunni Bab el-Tebbaneh, ity and professor of epidemiology at however, supports the rebels who have University College London. He notes that been fighting to overthrow Assad for residents of affluent suburban Maryland the past 31 months. live, on average, 17 years longer than But sectarian fighting in the two people in inner city Washington, DC. districts started long before: since Obesity 2008, there have been 18 rounds of Marmot’s own research focuses on the fighting, killing more than 200 and UK, where a national healthcare system wounding 3,000 others. provides all socioeconomic classes with The most recent clashes between the quality care. He has compared low- and two, fought across the aptly-named high- ranking British civil servants over the Syria Street that divides them, started course of their lives on a variety of health on Oct 21, killing 14 people. measures, ranging from cancer to obesity to After each round of violence, alcohol addiction. For virtually all condi- Lebanese troops deploy to the area, tions except breast and prostate cancer (it is bringing a temporary calm to the not clear why these are exceptions), streets of the city of 500,000 people, Marmot found that those at the bottom are of whom 80 percent are Sunni and just at dramatically greater risk, with overall 11 percent Alawite. mortality up to three times higher, depend- ing on the specific condition. Increased lev- Conflict els of unhealthy behavior among the less- “We are suffering the consequences affluent — like smoking — did not account of the Syrian conflict,” said Nabil for all of the differences. Also, even the Rahim, a Sunni cleric in the city who lowest-ranked civil servants in Marmot’s has long worked to soothe tensions research were employed, meaning that between the two communities. those on bottom rungs weren’t impover- But Rahim sees three main factors ished, simply less well-off. fuelling violence in the city: the con- A Syrian refugee girl plays with a toy gun at her family’s house in Zarqa, Jordan’s industrial center where thousands of Syrian refugees are living, northeast of The reason for the differences, say the capital Amman, Oct 21, 2013. More than 420,000 Syrian refugees have settled in Jordan’s cities, struggling for survival on UN foods stamps and straining flict in Syria, political tensions in the meager resources of a country that absorbed millions of exiles from the region’s hotspots in the past. (AP) Marmot, Stanford neuroscientist Robert Lebanon, and the country’s own bitter Sapolsky, Rockefeller University’s Bruce sectarian problems that caused a civil McEwen and a growing number of their March 8 coalition supports Damascus’ At that time, commerce and even the dissolution of the Jabal Mohsen- Tripoli’s flashpoints are fighting for peers, is found instead in the stress sys- war from 1975-1990. influence in Lebanon, and March 14 mixed marriages between residents of based Arab Democratic Party that financial reasons. tem, which in primates seems fine-tuned “In Jabal Mohsen, we know that vociferously opposes it. Bab al-Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen represents Tripoli’s Alawites, after “It’s true that some fight to defend to rank and hierarchy — not absolute (powerful Lebanese Shiite movement) The violence raging in Tripoli now flourished. two horrific car bomb explosions themselves, but others are driven by Hezbollah, Iran and the Syrian regime poverty, but relative social position. is in part the legacy of this interven- Break near two mosques in August killed sectarianism and money”. “For the poor, more inequality means are providing weapons and funds,” he tion. 45 people. One angry shopkeeper in the city more anger at what they don’t have and says. The war-scarred neighbourhoods The assassination of former prime The authorities have since issued was sure that the weapons and the more cognitive load from the worry about “It is more complicated in Bab al- saw their first clashes in 1976, when minister Rafiq Hariri in 2005 changed arrest warrants for seven Alawites money fuelling the cycle of violence how to keep up,” Sapolsky says. “For the Tebbaneh,” he adds. Alawites and supporters of Hafez al- all that. Political tensions soared once from Jabal Mohsen over the explo- was coming from outside. wealthy, it’s more fear about the menace “Those doing the shooting are resi- Assad fought against the Palestinian again, and were further exacerbated by sions. “The gunmen in Bab al-Tebbaneh of the have-nots and more effort put into dents, Islamists and supporters of the Liberation Organisation then head- the outbreak of the Syrian conflict in The ADP, meanwhile, whose don’t have the money to buy bread, walling themselves off from them. For March 14 coalition,” one of Lebanon’s quartered in Lebanon. March 2011. headquarters are in Jabal Mohsen, how could they afford weapons?”, he everyone, there’s less social support — main political groupings that has long In the 1980s, the front changed to Lebanon’s most prominent Sunni blames the violence on Sunni lead- asked, accusing politicians of financ- by definition, the more widely-spread opposed Assad. pit pro-Assad fighters against the politicians have denied ties to armed ers. ing the fighters. and unequal a hierarchy, the fewer peers “But many are fighting just for the Islamist Tawhid movement, which was groups in the city, and have called for Local journalist Ghassan Rifi says This week, as troops once again one has, and true social support requires money,” he added. strong in Bab al-Tebbaneh. help to clear Tripoli of weapons. the fighting between the two neigh- returned to the streets of Bab al- the symmetry of peers.” Syria militarily and politically dom- Then in 1986, when Syrian troops Former prime minister and Sunni bourhoods reflects regional strains Tebbaneh and Jabal Mohsen, residents In the baboons Sapolsky has studied, inated its tiny neighbour for more than leader Saad Hariri has condemned the low status is linked to high levels of the entered Bab al-Tebbaneh, they and over the Syrian conflict. were sceptical that troops would bring stress hormone cortisol, which can com- 30 years after Assad’s father Hafez al- their Lebanese backers killed hundreds fighting as “a dirty war” waged by “The latest flare-up is the result of lasting peace. promise the immune system. Low-ranked Assad intervened in Lebanon’s civil of people in a massacre remembered Assad against Tripoli through his Syrian-Saudi tensions,” Rifi told AFP, For Rahim, there can be no solution baboons, like lower-status humans, have war in 1976. to this day. “local tools”, in reference to Jabal referring to Sunni-majority Saudi for Tripoli “until the Syrian crisis a weakened response to infectious dis- Its involvement, which waned when Under the iron fist of the Syrian Mohsen’s Alawites and pro-Assad Arabia, a key backer of the anti-Assad ends, there is national reconciliation, eases and an increased risk for cardiovas- Assad withdrew his troops in 2005, regime, there was a semblance of movements. revolt. and all funding for weapons comes to cular disease and most cancers. polarised Lebanese politics. Today, the peace forced by control. Sunni leaders have also demanded Rahim also says that some people in a halt”.