A059 - Al-Zahrawi

 

Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al-
Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al- (Abu al-Qasim al-Zahravi) (Abul Qasim al-Zahravi) (Abul Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas al-Zahravi) (Albucasis) (Abul Kasim) (Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn ʿAbbās az-Zahrāwī) (Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi) (Albucasis) (b. c. 936, near Córdoba [Spain] - d. c. 1013).  Undoubtedly the greatest surgeon of the Middle Ages.  He is best known for several original breakthroughs in surgery, as an inventor of several surgical instruments, and for his famous Medical Encyclopedia.  Al-Zahravi is considered as “Father of Modern Surgery.”

Al-Zahravi was born and brought up in Zahra, the royal suburb of Cordova (in Arabic, Qurtuba), the capital of Muslim Spain.  During this time Zahra competed in grandeur and magnificence with Baghdad and Constantinople.  Al-Zahravi served in the capacity of the court physician to King al-Hakam II of Spain. 

Al-Zahravi was a prominent surgeon.  Patients and students from all parts of Europe came to him for treatment and advice.  At this time, Cordova was the favorite destination for Europeans seeking surgical operations, and the services of al-Zahravi were much in demand. 

Al-Zahravi’s principles of medical science surpassed those of Galen in the European medical curriculum.  He is famous for his thirty volume medical encyclopedia ‘Al-Tasrif li man ajaz an-il-talif.  Three volumes of this vast encyclopedia deal with the surgical knowledge including his own inventions and procedures.  The last volume contains many diagramsand illustrations of more than two hundred surgical instruments, most of which he developed.  Al-Zahravi gave detailed descriptions of many surgical operations and their treatment, including cauterization, removal of stone from the bladder, surgery of eye, ear and throat, midwifery, removal of the dead fetus, amputation, dissection of animals, and stypics.

As an inventor of many surgical instruments, al-Zahravi is famous for developing instruments for internal examination of the ear, internal inspection of the urethra and for applying or removing foreign bodies from the throat.  He introduced such new procedures as cauterization of wounds, crushing stones inside the bladder, vivisection and dissection. He applied cauterization procedure to as many as 50 different operations.  In addition, al-Zahravi discussed the preparation of medicines and the application of such techniques as sublimation and decantation.  He prescribed the use of diuretics, sudorifics, purgatives, the absorption of pure wine and hot baths.  Al-Zahravi was the first to give detailed descriptions of hemophilia and was the first to use silk thread for stitching wounds.

Al-Zahravi was also an expert in oral surgery and dentistry.  His Al-Tasrif contains sketches of complex instruments that he developed.  He discussed the problem of non-aligned or deformed teeth and procedures to rectify these defects.  In addition, he developed the procedure for preparing and setting artificial teeth made from animal bones.

Gerard of Cremona (1114-1187) translated Al-Tasrif into Latin in the Middle Ages.  It was then translated into Hebrew, French, English and into Latin dialect of the Provencal.  Al-Zahravi’s Al-Tasrif was an essential component of the medical curriculum in European countries for many centuries.  The famous French surgeon Guy de Chauliac (1300-1368) appended its Latin edition to his own book on surgery.  Several editions of this book (surgical chapters) were published including one at Venice (1497), at Basel (1541) and at Oxford (1778).  This book was taught for approximately five centuries as a standard textbook on surgery at universities of Salerno in Italy, Montpellier in France, and several European universities.

After a long and distinguished medical career, al-Zahravi died in 1031.

Al-Zahravi was Islām’s greatest medieval surgeon, whose comprehensive medical text, combining Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman classical teachings, shaped European surgical procedures until the Renaissance.

Abū al-Qāsim was court physician to the Spanish caliph ʿAbd ar-Raḥmān III an-Nāṣir and wrote At-Taṣrīf liman ʿajazʿan at-Taʾālīf, or At-Taṣrīf (“The Method”), a medical work in 30 parts. While much of the text was based on earlier authorities, especially the Epitomae of the 7th-century Byzantine physician Paul of Aegina, it contained many original observations, including the earliest known description of hemophilia. The last chapter, with its drawings of more than 200 instruments, constitutes the first illustrated, independent work on surgery.

Although At-Taṣrīf was largely ignored by physicians of the eastern Caliphate, the surgical treatise had tremendous influence in Christian Europe. Translated into Latin in the 12th century by the scholar Gerard of Cremona, it stood for nearly 500 years as the leading textbook on surgery in Europe, preferred for its concise lucidity even to the works of the classic Greek medical authority Galen.

 
Abu al-Qasim al-Zahravi see Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al-
Abul Qasim al-Zahravi see Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al-
Abul Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas al-Zahravi see Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al-
Albucasis see Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al-
Abu al-Qasim Khalaf ibn al-Abbas Al-Zahrawi  see Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al-
Father of Modern Surgery see Zahravi, Abu al-Qasim al-