How did Haly Abbas look at the cardiovascular system?

On the Surgical Treatments Related to Nephrological Issues in 'Alī b. al'Abbās al-Majūsī's (Haly Abbas) Kāmil al-Ṣinā'a al-Ṭibbiyya (The Perfect Book of the Art of Medicine)

OBJECTIVES

In this study, we translate from Arabic into English the chapters on surgical treatments related to nephrological issues in the ninth article of the second part of Haly Abbas' Kāmil al-Şinā'a al-Ṭibbiyya. Our aim was to contribute to the medical history literature, to compare these chapters with the relevant chapters in Paul of Aegina's Epitome, and to discuss findings in light of the related literature.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

We examined the Cairo, Būlāq, copy of Kāmil al-Şinā'a al-Ṭibbiyya (printed in Arabic) and the manuscripts that are in the Istanbul University Rare Works Library, Yale University Library, and Süleymaniye Manuscript Library. We translated the chapters from Arabic to English. Translated chapters were then compared with the relevant chapters of Paul of Aegina's Epitome and discussed in light of the related literature.

RESULTS

Surgical treatments in nephrological issues are provided in Chapter 45 (On urination with a catheter) and Chapter 46 (On removing a stone from the bladder) of the ninth article of the second volume of Kāmil al-Şinā'a al-Ṭibbiyya. The same topics are covered in Section 59 (On catheterism and injection of the bladder) and Section 60 (On calculus) of Paul of Aegina's sixth book in the second volume. The information provided by Haly Abbas on these subjects was remarkably similar to the information provided by Paul of Aegina.

CONCLUSIONS

It is considered that Haly Abbas benefited from Paul of Aegina's knowledge of the causes of the bladder obstruction, the catheter to remove the accumulated urine, the catheter application technique, and all applications and treatments for stone removal.

Reformulation of Traditional Chamomile Oil: Quality Controls and Fingerprint Presentation Based on Cluster Analysis of Attenuated Total Reflectance-Infrared Spectral Data

Herbal oils have been widely used in Iran as medicinal compounds dating back to thousands of years in Iran. Chamomile oil is widely used as an example of traditional oil. We remade chamomile oils and tried to modify it with current knowledge and facilities. Six types of oil (traditional and modified) were prepared. Microbial limit tests and physicochemical tests were performed on them. Also, principal component analysis, hierarchical cluster analysis, and partial least squares discriminant analysis were done on the spectral data of attenuated total reflectance-infrared in order to obtain insight based on classification pattern of the samples. The results show that we can use modified versions of the chamomile oils (modified Clevenger-type apparatus method and microwave method) with the same content of traditional ones and with less microbial contaminations and better physicochemical properties.

The Middle Ages Contributions to Cardiovascular Medicine

The historical period called the Middle Ages, a long interval between the 5^th and the 15^th centuries, is still commonly known as the Dark Ages, especially in the area of health sciences. In the last decades, this "classic" view of the Middle Ages has been gradually modified with advances in historiographical studies and the history of science. During that period in Western Europe, knowledge about the human body suffered a regression in terms of anatomy and physiology, with the predominance of religious conceptions mainly about diseases and their treatments. Knowledge on the cardiovascular system and heart diseases has been classically described as a repetition of the concepts developed by Galen from the dissection of animals and his keen sense of observation. However, the Middle East, especially Persia, was the birth place of a lot of intellectuals who preserved the ancient knowledge of the Greeks while building new knowledge and practices, especially from the 8^th to the 13^th century. The invasion of the Arabs in North of Africa and the Iberian Peninsula and the eclosion of the Crusades resulted in a greater contact between the East and the West, which in turn brought on the arrival of the Arab medical knowledge, among others, to 12^th century Europe. Such fact contributed to an extremely important change in the scientific medical knowledge in the West, leading to the incorporation of different concepts and practices in the field of cardiovascular Medicine. The new way of teaching and practicing Medicine of the great Arab doctors, together with the teaching hospitals and foundations in the Koran, transformed the Medicine practiced in Europe definitely. The objective of this paper is to describe the knowledge drawn up from the Middle Ages about the cardiovascular system, its understanding and therapeutic approach to cardiologists and cardiovascular surgeons.

Development of anatomophysiologic knowledge regarding the cardiovascular system: from Egyptians to Harvey

Our knowledge regarding the anatomophysiology of the cardiovascular system (CVS) has progressed since the fourth millennium BC. In Egypt (3500 BC), it was believed that a set of channels are interconnected to the heart, transporting air, urine, air, blood, and the soul. One thousand years later, the heart was established as the center of the CVS by the Hippocratic Corpus in the medical school of Kos, and some of the CVS anatomical characteristics were defined. The CVS was known to transport blood via the right ventricle through veins and the pneuma via the left ventricle through arteries. Two hundred years later, in Alexandria, following the development of human anatomical dissection, Herophilus discovered that arteries were 6 times thicker than veins, and Erasistratus described the semilunar valves, emphasizing that arteries were filled with blood when ventricles were empty. Further, 200 years later, Galen demonstrated that arteries contained blood and not air. With the decline of the Roman Empire, Greco-Roman medical knowledge about the CVS was preserved in Persia, and later in Islam where, Ibn Nafis inaccurately described pulmonary circulation. The resurgence of dissection of the human body in Europe in the 14th century was associated with the revival of the knowledge pertaining to the CVS. The main findings were the description of pulmonary circulation by Servetus, the anatomical discoveries of Vesalius, the demonstration of pulmonary circulation by Colombo, and the discovery of valves in veins by Fabricius. Following these developments, Harvey described blood circulation.

Rhazes (865-925 AD), the icon of Persian cardiology

For many long centuries, the function of the human cardiovascular system was an important issue among scholars of different eras and areas. Abubakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (865-925 AD), known by the Latin name Rhazes, was one of the scholars concerned with this issue. This physician is recognized as the first great scientist of the Golden Age of Islamic Medicine (9th-12th centuries AD). He authored Kitab al-Mansuri (Liber Al-Mansuri), a ten-volume medical encyclopedia that covers a large number of medical subjects. The first chapter of this book is allocated to human anatomy and functions. In this article, we review the chapter from Al-Mansuri that deals with Rhazes' views on the cardiovascular system.

Differentiation between seizure and hysteria in a tenth-century persian text: Hidāyat of al-Akhawayni (d. 983 AD)

Although hysteria is associated largely with the nineteenth century, we find the subject treated in a tenth-century Persian medical text, the Hidayat al-Muta`allemin Fi al-Tibb [A Guide to Medical Learners] by al-Akhawayni Bukhari (d. 983 AD), a prominent physician in the Persian history of medicine. In this article, we discuss al-Akhawayni's views on seizure and hysteria and his differentiation between the two conditions, and we place it in a historical context.

Melancholia in medieval Persian literature: The view of Hidayat of Al-Akhawayni

“Melancholia” seems to be the oldest term used to describe the manifestations of depression. Throughout the history of medicine, melancholia has been the focus of consideration of many scholars who have provided varying definitions of this disorder and its manifestations. This continual process has resulted in the gradual development of the concept of melancholia over time. Persian scholars were among the scientists who have studied the melancholia and contributed to its concept. One figure, Al-Akhawayni Bukhari (?-983 AD), a Persian physician whose reputation was based on the treatment of patients with mental problems, investigated this disorder. He described Melancholia and explained its clinical manifestations and treatment methods. Al-Akhawayni provided an early classification of the patients suffering from this disorder. Since the medieval Persian concept of melancholia is not well-known, this paper aims to review Al-Akhawayni’s 10^th century knowledge on melancholia which can represent the early concept of this disorder in the Near East.