Avicenna Canon of Medicine Volume 1 by Avicenna

He made the rules for experimenting and he was the first to conduct the modern scientific method. Ibn Sina started writing this work in 1012, exactly thousand years ago, and finished it in 1024. No medical book was studied to this amount in more then 600 years. The Canon was the main textbook at the medical schools at Louvain and Montpellier till 1657. The Canon was translated into Latin and had 15 Latin editions. Yet, the Canon was more systematic and logical than other medical scriptures of that time, containing references of books of previous physicians, enriched and modified with Ibn Sina›s own reflections. This work is very similar to the works of Avicenna›s predecessors Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi and Ali Ibn Abbas Al-Majusi, who presented the doctrine of Hippocrates, modified by Aristotle and Galen. It was written in five books: Book I-General principles, Book II-Materia medica Book III-Diseases of the individual organs Book IV-General diseases Book V-Formula for remedies. “Al-Qanun fit-Tibb”-, The Canon of Medicine”, is a recapitulation of the medicine of that time. The Canon of Medicine was the medical authority up until the 17 th century and was setting the standards for medicine in Europe and the Islamic world.

He gained glory with the work “Kitab al-Qanun fit-Tibb” (The Canon of Medicine) an enyclopaedia of medicine in five books, translated into Latin in the 13 th century by Gerardo de Cremone. His opus contains about three hundred works-46 on philosophical topics, 44 on medical, 81 works on astronomy and natural sciences and over 70 works on different religious topics. Ibn Sina, seen by some as a representative of pure aristotelism, by others as a neoplatonic, by the maority as an unique thinker whose spirit made it to the heights of geniality, a man whose books were burned by some khalifahs and banned by the Church, is mentioned in Dante's “Divine comedy” as one of the good people who did not know Christianity or were not Christians in the first circle of “Inferno” together with Aristotle, Plato, Heraclitus, Hipokrates and Averroes. One of the greatest names of the falasifa-helenistically inspired philosophy-was Abdullah Ibn sina (Avicenna, 980-1037). The Islamic scholastic philosophy revived the ancient Greek philosophy and preserved the heritage of Aristotle and Plato for the European renaissance. The development of the Islamic golden civilization is marked with the religion Islam and the influence of the Hebrew, Helenistic, Persian, Christian and other traditions and cultures. The Islamic scientific thought developed on the crossroads of the oldest civilizations, in the space of constant tensions and riots.

Avicenna Canon of Medicine Volume 1 by Avicenna