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Avicenna: By: Miles Orwig

Avicenna was a Persian polymath who lived from 980-1037 CE. He made many contributions to medicine, including writing the Canon of Medicine, considered one of the most famous books in the history of medicine. In it, he introduced experimental medicine and clinical trials. He also invented steam distillation and proposed quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases like tuberculosis. However, many of the scientific advances of the Islamic Golden Age were lost due to destructive events like the Crusades and Mongol invasions, which decimated the Middle East.

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92 views21 pages

Avicenna: By: Miles Orwig

Avicenna was a Persian polymath who lived from 980-1037 CE. He made many contributions to medicine, including writing the Canon of Medicine, considered one of the most famous books in the history of medicine. In it, he introduced experimental medicine and clinical trials. He also invented steam distillation and proposed quarantine to limit the spread of contagious diseases like tuberculosis. However, many of the scientific advances of the Islamic Golden Age were lost due to destructive events like the Crusades and Mongol invasions, which decimated the Middle East.

Uploaded by

Ahmed Qazi
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Avicenna

By: Miles
Orwig

Science of the Ancient Arabic


World

Abd Allh ibn Sn or Avicenna was born


in August 980 C.E.
He was the son of Abdullah who was a
local governor of the town Kharmaithan.
They later moved to the city of Bukhara.
Avicenna grew up during the Persian
Renaissance and the Islamic Golden Age.
He wrote the al-Qanun more widely
known as the Cannon of Medicine.
He invented steam distillation.

This is the area


where Bukhara
was located. It
was roughly on
the border of
Uzbekistan and
Turkmenistan

Early Life
Avicenna was a very bright young child. At the age
of ten he boasted that he had read the entire Quran.
One day a man by the name of Nateli came to the
town of Bukhara where Avicennas family moved to
live.
Nateli was a renown philosopher of the time.
Avicennas father asked Nateli to teach his son and
invited him to live in their house.
After experiencing Avicennas high intelligence Nateli
told his father that he should not engage in anything
but learning. Avicenna engaged himself and became
a well learned man

Early Life Continued


One day a reining prince of the
land by the name of Nuh ibn
Mansur fell ill. His physicians
immediately called for Avicenna
to help. Avicenna successfully
treated the prince and, as a
reward, was given access to the
library of the Saminad rulers.
It was in this library where
Avicenna spent spent his time
I saw books whose very names
are as yet unknown to many
works which I had never seen
before and not seen since. I read
these books, taking notes of their
contents. -Avicenna

Writing and Temperament


Avicenna grew up in a household that had
unorthodox religious views. This element
of his atmosphere shows in his thoughts
and writings.
Avicenna studied many topics including
philosophy, theology, geometry, and
medicine.
He believed that philosophy religion and
science were all related. This is known as
a holistic view.

Ancient Science of the Persian


Renaissance
Avicenna grew up in the Persian
Renaissance, a time where an
explosion of knowledge occurred.
Breakthroughs were made in
philosophy, science, mathematics,
and medicine.
Arabic society was change by new
technologies in the fields of science,
medicine, and reason.

Click Arabic
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Healthcare in the Ancient Arabic


World
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Canon of Medicine
Avicenna pioneered the
idea of taking pulse from
the wrist. He reasoned
that the wrist was easily
accessible and did not
stress the patient out by
having to expose his or
her body.

Air ke
a
Int

Avicenna also created the


idea of intubation.
Intubation is the process
of inserting a tube into
the trachea of a patient to
facilitate breathing. This
method is still used today.

Canon of Medicine

In the Canon of Medicine Avicenna


presents many groundbreaking ideas.
He discovered that many diseases had a
contagious nature. For example he
proposed that tuberculoses was contagious
In order to combat the contagious nature
of tuberculosis and other diseases he
proposed the idea of quarantine to limit
the spread of the disease. Avicenna
realized that tuberculosis was spread
through water and food so he quarantined
these resources too.

He also introduced the world to


experimental medicine and clinical
trials.
He proposed seven rules one must
follow when testing new drugs.
These seven rules laid down the
foundation of modern experimental
pharmacology methods.

Seven Rules of Testing


Drugs
1) The drug must be free from
any extraneous accidental quality.
2) "It must be used on a simple, not a composite, disease.
3) "The drug must be tested with two contrary types of diseases,
because sometimes a drug cures one disease by Its essential
qualities and another by its accidental ones.
4) "The quality of the drug must correspond to the strength of the
disease. For example, there are some drugs whose heat is less
than the coldness of certain diseases, so that they would have no
effect on them.
5) "The time of action must be observed, so that essence and
accident are not confused.
6) "The effect of the drug must be seen to occur constantly or in
many cases, for if this did not happen, it was an accidental effect.
7) "The experimentation must be done with the human body, for
testing a drug on a lion or a horse might not prove anything about
its effect on man."

Steam Distillation
Avicenna invented the
method of steam
distillation to manufacture
essential oils.
Steam distillation works
by bubbling steam
through a heated mixture
of raw materials. The
steam will cause some of
the compound within the
raw material to vaporize
with the steam
When the steam is
condensed the compound
within the steam
condenses to a liquid state
which results in a oily
layer above the water

Click here for more on steam distilla


tion

Steam Distillation of Essential Oils


Process

Another Steam Distillation Apparatus

Click here for more distillation information

What Happened to Islamic Science?


Many of the masterworks of the
Islamic Golden Age have been lost.
The Islamic world has been
decimated by war for almost one
thousand years.
Among the most destructive violent
events are the Crusades and the
Mongol Invasion.

The Crusades
A martial society developed in Europe around 1000
C.E. Noble aristocrats fought each other for land.
In order to shift noble violence away from
Christendom Pope Urban II urged Western knights to
use their arms to take the holy land back from the
Muslims. In return the pope promised the nights
wealth and forgiveness of their sins.
Jerusalem is the holy land of Judaism, Christianity
and Islam. The fight for Jerusalem left Arabic social
structure in shambles. They did not have enough
time to establish stability for the next conflict was
on the horizon.

Mongol Invasion
In 1258 the Mongols ravaged the town of
Bagdad and then overtook most of the middle
east.
After many decades the Mongol invasion fizzled
out.
However the middle east was in shambles. The
irrigation system of the great Mesopotamia were
permanently destroyed by the warfare.
With scattered governments and dwindling
resources the Islamic Golden Age was officially
at an end.

Evaluation
Describe two inventions by Avicenna.
Give an example of a modern medical technology you
feel strongly relates to the medicine of ancient Arabia.
Explain the correlations.
Compare the ethics of medicine today to the medical
ethics practiced during the Islamic Golden Age. Do
you think our modern society is more ethically
evolved? Explain(hint: health insurance,
pharmaceutical companies, privatization.)

Draw the process of steam distillation to the best of


your ability. Include captions that explain the function
of each part of the steam distillation apparatus.
Describe a historical event you believe had the biggest
impact on the fall of Arabic Civilization.

Sources

Afnan, Soheil Muhsin. "Avicenna, His Life and Works." Google Books. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
<http://books.google.com/books?
hl=en&lr=&id=PVsA2wM0pDEC&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=Avicenna&ots=ZTAj7AqVZC&sig=Rm32x_wa
Neqcw6HNKRGhTgq3FJ8#v=onepage&q&f=false>.
Smith, Richard D. "Avicenna and the Canon of Medicine: A Millennial Tribute." The Western Journal of
Medicine. Web. 21 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1272342/pdf/westjmed00230-0091.pdf>.
"Avicenna." Encyclopedia of Science and Religion. Ed. Ray Abruzzi and Michael J. McGandy.
Macmillan-Thomson Gale, 2003. eNotes.com. 2006. 23 Mar, 2011 <http://www.enotes.com/sciencereligion-encyclopedia/avicenna>
"Avicenna's "Canon of Medicine"" THEOSOPHY 37.4 (1949): 163-69. Print.
"Medicine in Medieval Islam." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 23 Mar. 2011.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_in_medieval_Islam>.
Degrees, Exploiting Online. "People Worth Knowing: Avicenna." Zen College Life: Online Schools,
Degrees and Colleges Reviewed and Explored. Web. 24 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.zencollegelife.com/people-worth-knowing/>.
"Distillation in the Manufacture of Essential Oils." Essential Oils by Esoteric Oils for Aromatherapy.
Web. 24 Mar. 2011. <http://www.essentialoils.co.za/distillation.htm>.
"Distillation - Organic Compounds | Tutorvista.com." Tutorvista.com - Online Tutoring, Homework Help
for Math, Science, English from Best Online Tutor. Web. 24 Mar. 2011.
<http://www.tutorvista.com/content/chemistry/chemistry-iii/organic-compounds/distillation.php>.
"Medicine in Medieval Islam." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Web. 24 Mar. 2011.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_in_medieval_Islam>.

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