Light in the Dark Ages (1/2)

While the Dark Ages were a time of intellectual and societal stagnation throughout much of Europe, the torch of academia continued to burn brightly in the Islamic world. The intellectual progress made during this time includes numerous medical breakthroughs which physicians, historians, and students should strive to understand not only for academic interest but also to learn and improve medicine today.

The use of secular hospitals originated in this era and there were significant developments in a variety of medical fields including anesthesia, ophthalmology, pharmacology, neurology and psychiatry.

A strong emphasis on patient-centered and interdisciplinary care was evident in many of the areas of Islamic medicine during the Dark Ages.

The achievements of Islamic physicians during the Dark Ages also demonstrates the importance of strong communication within the global medical field, as the presence of avenues for global academic communication could have eliminated much of the disparity in medical care in different parts of the world over subsequent centuries. The need for improved international communication applies to medicine even today.

The Dark Ages are known to be a time of intellectual and societal stagnation throughout much of Europe and as learners in the Western world we rarely hear about the academic achievements during this time. This is clearly seen in the medical field where historians often move from the work of the Greco-Romans before the Dark Ages to the discoveries of the Europeans afterwards. However from the seventh to thirteenth centuries the Islamic empire spread from Spain to China and was the centre for trading of goods, knowledge, and ideas.

The Islamic civilization was thriving intellectually at this time yet many historians regard the role of the Muslims during the Dark Ages as merely translators and transmitters of the Greco-Roman medical knowledge.

There are three important stages in the development of medicine in Islam. The first is the compilation and translation of the medical works of previous eras which occurred in the seventh and eighth centuries.

The second stage was that of significant and genuine contribution by Islamic physicians to the current medical and scientific knowledge base.

The third stage, occurring after the thirteenth century, was that of intellectual stagnation and decline within the Islamic world.

This article will briefly review the above described second stage, discussing the unique contributions of Islam to medicine during the Dark Ages and their relevance to modern-day medicine.

Hospitals

One significant contribution of Islam to medicine was the introduction of hospitals as we are familiar with them today. Although hospitals had existed prior to the seventh century, it was the Islamic era that transformed hospitals into secular institutions for the first time in history.

All ill individuals were treated irrespective of financial status, gender, age, and faith. Since Muslims required clean water to prepare for their daily prayers, all hospitals were also supplied with ample clean water and for the sake of modesty between genders separate wards were created for male and female patients in which the nurses and patients were of the same gender.

The nature of this hospital care is a clear example of making the patient’s needs and preferences a priority – a concept towards which medicine is returning today.

The contributions of Islamic medicine to the development of hospitals also included allowing only qualified physicians to practice medicine, originating an extensive teaching system within hospitals in which medical students became active learners, the advent of patient records for the first time in history and the use of hospitals to care for lepers, the mentally ill, and other groups that were ostracized for centuries to come in other areas of the world.

Ophthalmology

These centuries were also a time of tremendous growth in the field of ophthalmology. Not only did most medical manuals published during this time in the Islamic world include a chapter devoted to the eye, but a variety of compendiums were also written solely for diseases and conditions of the eye.

Hunain ibn Ishaq’s influential “Ten Treatises of the Eye” was a work that demonstrated significant advancement from the previous knowledge of the Greco-Romans, while al-Haytham’s “Optical Thesaurus” inspired the theories of future notables including Roger Bacon, Leonardo da Vinci, and Johannes Kepler.

Furthermore, it was Al-Razi (Rhazes) who discovered the light-reaction of the pupil, Ibn Sina (Avicenna) who first described the six intrinsic muscles of the eye, and Ammar bin Ali who was the first to describe cataract extraction using suction. This again reinforces the idea that the Islamic era was not merely one of translation but rather one of medical breakthroughs.

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