Agriculture Reference
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its pre-eminent position in mediaeval
medicine.
The most widely read of all abridge-
ments of the ānūn was that titled K.
al-Mū ¡ iz written by Ibn al-Nafīs. He also
composed a commentary on the entire
ānūn that became an authoritative work
in its own right, and in it he criticised Ibn
Sīnā for, amongst other things, spreading
his discussion of anatomy over several dif-
ferent sections of the ānūn . Ibn al-Nafīs
then prepared a separate commentary on
the anatomy which is preserved in several
copies, one completed in 640/1242 some
46 years before his death, and in it Ibn
al-Nafīs described the movement of blood
through the pulmonary transit (the pul-
monary circulation) some three centuries
before it wasdescribed by Europeans. Ibn
al-Nafīs spent much of his life in Cairo,
where he died in 687/1288 bequeathing
his house and library to the recently-con-
structed Manūrī hospital there.
In Damascus, an important pupil of
both Ibn al-Nafīs and Ibn Abī Uaybia
was the Christian physician Ibn al-uff,
who taught medicine in Damascus and
composed what appears to be the only
mediaeval Arabic treatise devoted solely
to surgery. This manual ( K. al-Umda fī
ināat al- ¡ irāa ) covered all aspects of sur-
gical care except ophthalmology, which
he considered to be a speciality with its
own technical literature.
Only two areas of medicine developed
their own extensive specialist literature:
ophthalmology and pharmacology. Nearly
every medical compendium had chapters
on both subjects, but the most compre-
hensive coverage was to be found in the
large number of monographs devoted
solely to eye diseases or simple and com-
pound remedies.
In pharmacology, Islamic writers sur-
passed their earlier models, primarily
because their broader geographic hori-
zons brought them into contact with drugs
unknown to earlier peoples. Knowledge
of medicinal substances was based initially
upon the approximately 500 substances
described by Dioscorides. From the for-
mularies of Sābūr b. Sahl and al-Kindī,
and a treatise on the medical régime
for pilgrims to Mecca ( K. fī tadbīr safar
al-a ¡¡ ) written by usā b. Lūā, it is
evident that by the 3rd/9th century many
medicaments were being used that were
unknown in Hellenistic medicine, includ-
ing camphor, musk, and sal-ammoniac, as
well as commodities previously unknown
to Europe, such as cotton. Numerous
treatises were composed on materia medica ,
often with extensive philological interests.
Most influential of all was the manual by
Ibn al-Bayār, which was an alphabeti-
cal guide to over 1,400 medicaments in
2,324 separate entries, taken from his own
observations as well as over 260 written
sources which he quotes. His enormous
manual formed the basis of many sub-
sequent guides to medicinal substances.
New equipment was also developed for
pharmaceutics. “Albarello” is the name
given today in Europe to drug jars hav-
ing a contracted waist, the earliest exam-
ples of which were made in Syria in the
6th/12th century. There was also a large
and varied industry of mortar and pestle
design and production.
The topic of poisons was of great inter-
est in both antiquity and in mediaeval
Islam. Snake and dog bites as well as the ill
effects of scorpions and spiders and other
animals caused much concern, while the
poisonous properties of various minerals
and plants, such as aconite, mandrake,
and black hellebore, were exploited. A
particularly important Arabic treatise on
antidotes was written in 669/1270 in Syria
by Alī b. Abd al-A zīm al-Anārī. It not
only describes plants found in Syria at the
time, but incorporates extensive quota-
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