Ishāq ibn ʻAlī al-Ruhāwī (Arabic: إسحاق بن علي الرهاوي) was a 9th century Arab Muslim[1] physician and the author of the first medical ethics book in Islamic medicine.[2]
His Ethics of the Physician contains the first documented description of a peer review process, where the notes of a practising Islamic physician were reviewed by peers and the physician could face a lawsuit from a maltreated patient if the reviews were negative.[3]
Al-Ruhawi was probably from Al-Ruha, modern-day Şanlıurfa in Turkey, close to the border with Syria, which is often simply known as Urfa.[4]
Works [link]
Al-Ruhawi's most celebrated work is Adab al-Tabib ("Practical Ethics of the Physician" or "Practical Medical Deontology"), the earliest surviving Arabic work on medical ethics. Al-Ruhawi regarded physicians as "guardians of souls and bodies". The work was based on Hippocrates and Galen and consisted of twenty chapters on various topics related to medical ethics.[4]
He also wrote the following books:[1]
- A compilation of first four books of Alexandrian Canons
- Introduction to Dialectics for Beginners
- On Examination of Physicians
He compiled two works based on Galen.[4]
References [link]
- ^ a b Aksoy, Sahin (2004). "The Religious Tradition of Ishaq ibn Ali Al-Ruhawi : The Author of the First Medical Ethics Book in Islamic Medicine". Journal of the International Society for the History of Islamic Medicine 3 (5): 9–11. https://www.ishim.net/ishimj/5/03.pdf.
- ^ Prioreschi, Plinio (2001). A History of Medicine: Byzantine and Islamic medicine (1st ed.). Omaha, NE: Horatius Press. p. 394. ISBN 1-888456-04-3.
- ^ Spier, Ray (August 2002), "The History of the Peer-Review Process", Trends in Biotechnology 20 (8): 357–358, DOI:10.1016/S0167-7799(02)01985-6, ISSN 0167-7799, PMID 12127284.
Al Kawi, M. Zuheir (1997), "History of Medical Records and Peer Review", Annals of Saudi Medicine 17 (3): 277–278, PMID 17369721, https://www.kfshrc.edu.sa/annals/Old/173/96-301ed.pdf. - ^ a b c Levey, Martin (1967). "Medical Ethics of Medieval Islam with Special Reference to Al-Ruhāwī's "Practical Ethics of the Physician"". Transactions of the American Philosophical Society. New Series (American Philosophical Society) 57 (3): 1–100. ISSN 00659746. JSTOR 1006137.
External links [link]
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