What did Arab doctors accomplish?

Medicine & Science

- Arabic was the dominant scientific language from the 8th to the 13th century.

- Arabic scholars preserved much Classical Greek and Persian wisdom as well as ancient Indian contributions to medicine and science; they also provided valuable comments and critiques.

- Established schools of Pharmacy.

- Founded the first hospital-based medical teaching institutions in the 9th century in Tunisia and Egypt.

- Wrote medical encyclopedias which described hundreds of diseases and their symptoms and treatments.

- Promoted clinical observation and empiricism at a time when Europe regarded Hippocrates' teachings as sacrosanct.

- Al-Zahrawi developed surgical instruments and techniques that were not improved on in Europe for centuries.

- Ibn al-Haytham corrected Ptolemy's incorrect explanation of eye physiology and explained how light enters the eye and is projected into the brain, laying the basis of modern optics.

- Arab physicians and surgeons made significant contributions to the field of human anatomy, and also made the first major advances in the field of experimental physiology after the ancient Alexandrians.

- Ibn Sina's text, The Canon of Medicine (1025), contained important advances over Galenic medicine, including clinical differentiation between meningitis and encephalitis and the introduction of experimental medicine; it was the most important medical text of its time and became the standard textbook in European medical schools until the 17th century.

- Wrote comprehensive texts detailing the use of cautery, cautery, amputation, cupping, and leeches.

- They studied the contagious nature of diseases and were among the first to practice inoculation as a preventive measure.

Chemistry & Alchemy

- The science of chemistry arose in the Muslim world as an offshoot of alchemy, which was used to develop industrial uses of mineral and plant matter through trial and error experiments rather than philosophical theorizing.

- Arabs made significant advancements in the fields of chemistry and alchemy, and were the first to prepare numerous chemicals, including potassium hydroxide, nitric acid, and sulfuric acid.

- Jabir ibn Hayyan, often regarded as the father of modern chemistry, developed a range of chemical techniques - such as distillation, crystallization and filtration - that revolutionized the field of chemistry, along with the equipment used in it, such as the alembic.

- Described sulfuric acid and its application to metallurgy, and created a proto-periodic system that classified metals according to their properties.

- In metallurgy, they discovered several chemical applications, including the technique of carburizing iron.

- They wrote the first books that distinguished chemistry as an independent science from alchemy, describing several chemical principles and processes, such as calcination, reduction, sublimation and distillation, and invented and developed laboratory equipment, including the alembic, still and retort.

Pharmacy & Pharmacology

- The first true pharmacies appeared in the Islamic world, and in Baghdad in the 8th century, the caliph al-Mansur established the first state hospital which offered free medicines to patients, and he also issued a decree forbidding the dispensing of medicines by anyone who had not passed an examination.

- The concept of clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of drugs was first employed by Islamic pharmacists.

- Physicians like Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi and Maimonides developed various medications such as the cough suppressant jujube, mercurial ointment, medicated sugar and the "theriac" antidote still in use today.

- The earliest known text on pharmacology was penned in the 8th century by the Iranian physician Jabir ibn Hayyan.

- The development of the still made possible the first distillation of alcohol, and the isolation of numerous aromatic essences previously difficult or impossible to obtain, such as rose water, naphtha, and camphor.

- They also developed the extraction of oils and alcoholic spirits from plants for both medicinal and gastronomical uses, and produced new varieties of alcoholic drinks, such as brandy, gin, whisky, and the distillation of whiskey and arrack.