The Canon of Medicine () is an encyclopedia of medicine in five books compiled by Avicenna (, ibn Sina) and completed in 1025. It is among the most influential works of its time. It presents an overview of the contemporary medical knowledge of the Islamic world, which had been influenced by earlier traditions including Greco-Roman medicine (particularly Galen), Persian medicine, Chinese medicine and Indian medicine. Its translation from Arabic to Latin in 12th century Toledo greatly influenced the development of medieval medicine. It became the standard textbook for teaching in European universities into the early modern period.

The Canon of Medicine remained a medical authority for centuries. It set the standards for medicine in medieval Europe and the Islamic world and was used as a standard medical textbook through the 18th century in Europe. It is an important text in Unani medicine, a form of traditional medicine practiced in India.

Title

The English title Canon of Medicine is derived from the common medieval Latin Canon Medicinae, itself a translation of the original Arabic (), with the same meaning. "Canon" (often translated in English as "law" or "legal code") here connotes an ordered system, or complete, universal encyclopedia. The common medieval version of the title was Liber Canonis.

Development

The medical traditions of Galen, and thereby Hippocrates, had dominated Islamic medicine from its beginnings. Avicenna sought to fit these traditions into Aristotle's natural philosophy. in 1025.

Overview

thumb|First page of the introduction to the first book (Arabic manuscript, 1597)

The Canon of Medicine is divided into five books:

Book 1

Book 1 is made up of six theses which give a general description of medicine in general, the cosmic elements that make up the cosmos and the human body, the mutual interaction of elements (temperaments), fluids of the body (humours), human anatomy, and physiology. The book explains the causes of health and disease. Avicenna believed that the human body cannot be restored to health unless the causes of both health and disease are determined. He defined medicine (tibb) as follows:

Thesis I Definition and Scope of Medicine

Avicenna begins part one by dividing theoretical medicine and medical practice. He describes what he says are the "four causes" of illness, based on Aristotelian philosophy: The material cause, the efficient cause, the formal cause, and the final cause:

{| class="wikitable"

|+ Evidences of the four primary temperaments

|-

! Evidence

! Hot

! Cold

! Moist

! Dry

|-

! Morbid states

| Inflammations become febrile <br />Loss of vigour

| Fevers related to serous humour <br />Rheumatism

| Lassitude

|

|-

! Functional power

| Deficient energy

| Deficient digestive power

| Difficult digestion

|

|-

! Subjective sensations

| Bitter taste <br />Excessive thirst <br />Burning cardiac orifice

| Lack of desire for fluids

| Mucoid salivation <br />Sleepiness

| Insomnia, wakefulness

|-

! Physical signs

| High pulse rate, <br />approaching lassitude

| Flaccid joints

| Diarrhea <br />Swollen eyelids

| Rough skin <br />Acquired habit

|-

! rowspan=2 |Foods & medicines

| Calefacients harmful

| Infrigidants harmful

| Moist aliments harmful

| Dry regimen harmful

|-

| Infrigidants beneficial

| Calefacients beneficial

|

| Humectants beneficial

|-

! Relation to weather

| Worse in summer

| Worse in winter

|

| Bad in autumn

|}

;The Eight Varieties of Equipoise

Canon describes humans as having eight different "varieties of equipoise", or differing temperaments. An element of such belief is apparent in the chapter of al-Lawa, which relates "the manifestations to an interruption of vital life essence to the brain." He combined his own view with that of the Four Humours to establish a new doctrine to explain the mechanisms of various diseases in another work he wrote, Treatise on Pulse:

Definition of body fluid

The Canon defines a humour as "that fluid, moist 'body' into which our aliment is transformed", and lists the four primary types of fluids as sanguineous, serous, bilious, and atrabilious. The secondary fluids are separated into "non-excrementitious" and "excrementitious".

The sanguineous humour

Avicenna calls this humour "the most excellent of all"

Anatomy or "The Members"

In his thesis on "The Members", Avicenna explains that the humours help to make up the members of the body, gives a general description and how to repair them.<br />

Some are "simple members" or "elementary tissue" such as bone, cartilage and tendons. Some are "compound members" such as the heart, the liver, and the brain. He also categorizes these into vital organs and auxiliary organs. He contrasts Galen's view that the brain is the "chief seat of sentient life" with Aristotle's view that the heart is the source of all the body's faculties, saying that if physicians considered the matter carefully they would agree with Aristotle that the heart was the ultimate source of all the faculties, even if (for example) the brain is where the rational faculty manifests itself.

The Canon contains seven rules for experimenting with new drugs, taken partly from Galen.

  1. "The drug must be free from any acquired quality"; for example from being exposed to heat or cold or stored in close proximity to other substances.
  2. "The experiment must done on a single, not a composite condition"; in other words it should not be tested on a patient who has complex or multiple illnesses.
  3. "The drug must be tested on two contrary conditions"; a drug may act directly on a disease but also it may be effective against a different disease by relieving its symptoms.
  4. "The quality of the drug must correspond to the strength of the disease...it is best to experiment first using the weakest [dosage] and then increase it gradually until you know the potency of the drug, leaving no room for doubt."
  5. "One should consider the time needed for the drug to take effect. If the drug has an immediate effect, this shows that it has acted against the disease itself."
  6. "The effect of the drug should be the same in all cases or, at least, in most. If that is not the case, the effect is then accidental, because things that occur naturally are always or mostly consistent."
  7. "Experiments should be carried out on the human body [...] the quality of the medicine might mean that it would affect the human body differently from the animal body..." The third book is also divided into several sections, including: pulsology, migraines, cataracts, vasovagal syncope, and neuroscience.

Stroke

Strokes are described in extensive detail in Book 3 of the Canon of Medicine. First, two causes of stroke are identified: blockage of vessels in the brain, and blockage of the affective spirit of the brain, a cause that can only be explained using theories on humoral medicine. The blockage of vessels is then further subdivided into two sub-types: collapse and ischemia.

Furthermore, several specific neurological conditions are described, including: epilepsy, apoplexy and stroke, paralysis, vertigo, spasm, wry mouth, tremor, meningitis, amnesia and dementia, head injuries and traumas, hysteria and conversion disorder, fainting and stupor, nervous tic, sexual disorders, love sickness, delusion and hallucination, insomnia, sopor, nightmare, mania and psychosis, melancholia, paranoia, asthenia, hydrocephalus, and sciatica. The book "concludes with a treatise on personal hygiene, emphasizing care of the hair, skin, nails, body odor, and the treatment of overweight or underweight persons." The encyclopaedic content, systematic arrangement, and combination of Galen's medicine with Aristotle's science and philosophy helped the Canon enter European scholastic medicine. Medical scholars started to use the Canon in the 13th century, while university courses implemented the text from the 14th century onwards. The Canons influence declined in the 16th century as a result of humanists' preference in medicine for ancient Greek and Roman authorities over Arabic authorities, although others defended Avicenna's innovations beyond the original classical texts. It fell out of favour in university syllabi, although it was still being taught as background literature as late as 1715 in Padua.

The earliest known copy of volume 5 of the Canon of Medicine (dated 1052) is held in the collection of the Aga Khan and is housed in the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The earliest printed edition of the Latin Canon appeared in 1472, but covering only book three. Soon after, eleven complete incunables were published, followed by fourteen more Latin editions in the 16th century until 1608.

George Sarton wrote in the Introduction to the History of Science:

See also

  • Al-Tasrif
  • Medical literature
  • The Book of Healing
  • Al-Nijat

Notes and references

;Sources

  • Avicenna, 980–1037. (1973). A treatise on the Canon of medicine of Avicenna, incorporating a translation of the first book,. Gruner, Oskar Cameron,. [New York],: [AMS Press]. . .
  • Musallam, B. "AVICENNA x. Medicine and Biology". Encyclopædia Iranica. Retrieved 10 November 2019.
  • .
  • Pormann, Peter E.; Savage-Smith, Emilie (2007). Medieval Islamic Medicine. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press. .
  • .
  • .
  • Biography of Avicenna
  • A scanned copy of Kitab alQanun fi alTibb (Book (of) the Canon of Medicine)