Avicenna: Philosopher, Physician and Psychiatrist

(371-437 A.H. / 970-1036 G.)

     “His influence on European medicine has been overwhelming The Canon of Medicine is the culminating and masterpieces of Arabic Systematization… Latin versions of this gigantic work (13 volumes) exist in innumerable manuscripts; The demand for it may be gleaned from the fact that in the last 30 years of the 15^th century it was issued 16 times, 15 editions being in Latin and one in Hebrew, and that it was reissued more than 20 times during the 16^th century…  These figures do not include editions of part of the work… Commentaries on it in Latin, Hebrew and vernaculars, both in print, are without numbers, and the book continued to be printed and read into the second half of the 17^th century… Probably no medical book ever written has been so much studied…” Dr. Max Meyerhoff in the Legacy of Islam (Chapter on “Science and Medicine”).

VI. Heroes of Science & Medicine

Al-Husain Ibn Abdullah Ibn Seena

Avicenna: Philosopher, Physician and Psychiatrist

(371-437 A.H. / 970-1036 G.)

     “His influence on European medicine has been overwhelming The Canon of Medicine is the culminating and masterpieces of Arabic Systematization… Latin versions of this gigantic work (13 volumes) exist in innumerable manuscripts; The demand for it may be gleaned from the fact that in the last 30 years of the 15^th century it was issued 16 times, 15 editions being in Latin and one in Hebrew, and that it was reissued more than 20 times during the 16^th century…  These figures do not include editions of part of the work… Commentaries on it in Latin, Hebrew and vernaculars, both in print, are without numbers, and the book continued to be printed and read into the second half of the 17^th century… Probably no medical book ever written has been so much studied…” Dr. Max Meyerhoff in the Legacy of Islam (Chapter on “Science and Medicine”).

     Who was the author of this much celebrated text on medicine which dominated the field for more than six centuries? The author was our today’s hero, Al-Husain ibn Abdullah ibn Seena, who is better known in the West by the name of Avicenna and known in the world of Islam as “Al-Sheikh Ar-Raees”, (The Chief Master or Teacher).

      Our hero was born in 371 A.H. (970 G.) near Bukhara to a father who was a governor of a small town near the capital of the Sammanide Kingdom. The father Abdullah ibn Sina was known for his learning, especially philosophy. Upon the birth of our hero the family moved to the capital Bukhara where he studied the Quran and Arabic language and literature, mastering these fields by the age of ten. Then he studied Fiqh (Islamic Law). Avicenna’s interest in philosophy started early in his life, due to the discussions he used to hear at home between his father and his friends. The basics of mathematics and geometry were taught to Avicenna at the hands of a Muslim grocer by the name of Mahmood al Massaah. It was his teacher of logic, however, who (out of admiration) insisted that Avicenna be directed to the study of science. When the teacher found that his pupil excelled him in his own specialization, Abu Abdullah (the teacher) left Bukhara for another town. Thus, our hero was left to study whatever he could lay hands on, all on his own. It is reported that he found some difficulty in understanding Aristotle's work on metaphysics. So he memorized the whole book. Later, when he found Al-Faraabi’s book on the subject, which helped him understand it, Avicenna was excited. So he gave much money in charity out of gratitude to God.

     Our hero’s acumen enabled him to study medicine and even practice it with great success at the age of sixteen.

     By the age of eighteen, Avicenna had already memorized the Holy Qur’an and studied Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic Law, Arabic language and literature, arithmetic and geometry, in addition to medicine, theology, logic and philosophy.

     Avicenna’s fame as a physician helped him gain great reputation even at young age, as pointed out earlier. It also helped him in another way. For when he treated the Sultan Nuh ibn Mansoor of Bukhara for an illness that many other well known physicians of the time could not treat, our hero was taken into the retinue of the Sultan. Thus, Avicenna was given the chance of his life to read, in the private library of the Sultan, books he never heard of before, deepening his already wide knowledge in various fields.

    By the age of 21 Avicenna was already well-known for many books he had written on literature and philosophy. It was at that age (in the year 392 A.H. / 1001 A.D). that our hero left Bukhara for Korkanj, the capital of Khawarizm where he met many famous scholars, like al-Bayrouni, at the court of Ali ibn al-Mamoun, the governor of the city. But political problems forced Avicenna to be on the move again, until he settled at Jurjan where he continued his practice of medicine, in addition to writing. There he started writing his voluminous work on medicine (mentioned at the beginning of this chapter), the book entitled Kitab al-Qanoon ‘the Canon of Medicine’. Life was good at Jurjaan, but it did not seem to be on par with the ambitious Avicenna’s expectations. So he was on the move again.

     Later, he settled at Hamadaan where he was appointed minister (wazir) to its governor, whom our hero successfully treated of some disease.

     It seems that our hero Avicenna liked the job of Minister, in addition to the practice of medicine and teaching as well as writing.

     At Hamadaan our hero finished writing another well-known work of his, called Kitab-ush-Shifa ‘The Book of Cure’, an encyclopedic work of 28 volumes on logic, physics, mathematics, and metaphysics. In that book we see Avicenna not only the philosopher, but also the empirical scientist as well. The genius of Avicenna was indeed unlimited, for he delved in and contributed to many fields of knowledge, from the most abstract to the most practical, and he was a pioneer in many of those fields. In medicine alone we have already seen that his book the Canon was for many centuries the main textbook and reference for the Europeans.

     It is worth noting that Avicenna was the first well-known physician who introduced three things in the practice of medicine for the first time in history. He was the first to introduce hyperdermic injections, the first to use anesthesia in surgery, and the first scientist to deal with psychosomatic diseases, and use psychiatry in the treatment of many hopeless cases, with great success. One of these cases is reported in the following story.

     Once a prince of the Buwaihid Dynasty (that ruled Persia in 4^th century A.H. (10^th  G.) suffered from a neurotic disease which developed into a sort of insanity. The prince refused to eat, telling people all the time that he was a cow, mooing like it, and asking them to slaughter him. Avicenna was called, and, knowing the case in full, he brought along aids and knives. He asked that the patient be brought and laid on the ground with the knife in Avicenna’s hand. Then he poked at the patient’s body with his fingers and remarked: “But this cow is very skinny, and it is useless to slaughter such a skinny cow. I suggest that you feed it well until it gets fuller of fat and meat before we can slaughter it.” Thus the prince was convinced of the necessity of eating. Medicine was mixed with the food. Soon the patient recovered and all was well through psychological treatment, more than eight hundred years before Freud and his studies in the West.

     Avicenna was a typical encyclopedic scientist and hero of Islam who contributed not only to medicine, but to all other allied fields of surgery, chemistry, and apothecary, besides other branches of knowledge. No wonder then that when he died in 437 A.H. (1036 G.) he left no less than 200 books on various subjects.