Islamic Medicine

In our own intellectual and scientific heritage Islamic medicine plays a much greater part than is usually realised. From about 1200 to 1600 the main textbooks for European medical students were those translated from the works of Muslim authors writing in Arabic. The present volume is not a history of Islamic medicine, but rather an attempt to show its distinctive character by concentrating on certain of its basic aspects. The author shows how translations into Arabic of medical works, mainly from the Greek tradition, led to the renewal of this tradition in the Islamic world and then to its Islamisation. After a brief account of the development of Islamic medicine and its transmission to Europe, he goes on to explain some of its main concepts - its system of human physiology, its ideas about the nature of disease and how infection is transmitted, its rules for diet and the use of drugs. A final chapter explains the relation of 'rational medicine' to the occult and to astrology.