Avicenna (Ibn Sina) and the Canon of Medicine

Who was Avicenna?

The National Library of Medicine (NLM) writes his name as Abu 'Ali al-Husayn ibn 'Abd Allah Ibn Sina, known to Europeans as Avicenna, and gives his death as 1037 CE. [2] A University of Edinburgh archive entry calls him an 11th-century Persian scholar, physician and astronomer. [1] A review of his contribution to cardiology calls him the most famous and influential of the Islamic philosopher-scientists. [3] For how later traditions built on this heritage, see Unani medicine and the history of Unani medicine.

The Canon: how it was written

According to the NLM, the encyclopedia was composed over a lengthy period as Avicenna moved westward within what is now Iran, from Gurgan, where it was begun, to Rayy near modern Tehran, and then to Hamadan, where it was completed. [2] Its size reinforced its authority, and so did its title: "Qanun" means "canon" or "codes of law." [2] Edinburgh describes it as an encyclopedic text in five books, based on the works of Aristotle and Galen. [1] See Galen and Galenic medicine.

The five books

The NLM summarizes the structure this way. [2]

Because of its size, relatively few complete copies survive in Arabic or Latin. [2] The NLM states that there is no modern European-language translation of the entire Canon, and the translations of Book One that exist were made from medieval Latin or from Urdu, not directly from Arabic. [2] That matters: many popular claims about what "Avicenna said" rest on partial or second-hand translations.

How it reached Europe

The Canon was widely read in Europe in the Latin translation of Gerard of Cremona, made in the 12th century. [2] A new Latin version by Andrea Alpago was published in 1527. [2] Between 1500 and 1674, some sixty editions of part or all of the Canon were published in Europe, mostly for university medical training. [2] One review calls it a principal medical textbook for over 600 years, and another says it remained the standard text in both East and West until the 16th century. [4][3]

A tradition that also revised itself

The Canon was criticized and corrected within the Islamic world. The NLM says Ibn al-Nafis, in a 13th-century commentary on the Canon's anatomy, criticized Avicenna for scattering the anatomy across the encyclopedia. [2] Ibn al-Nafis also stated that blood passes from the right to the left side of the heart through the lungs, rather than through a passage in the heart, as Galen had argued. [2] Avicenna himself is credited with refining Galen's theory of the pulse. [3]

Framework versus findings

The Canon works within humoral thinking. A paper on migraine in the Canon notes that Avicenna believed in humoral theory and divided migraine into hot and cold types. [5] A paper on carpal tunnel syndrome describes the Canon explaining nerve problems through nerve compression and also through disturbed balance of the four humors and altered temperament (mizaj). [6] Those humoral explanations are traditional frameworks, not current biology. See Hippocratic medicine and the four humors.

Modern authors do point to parts of the Canon that match later findings. The migraine paper's authors say most of Avicenna's definitions and explained pathologies are supported by current concepts, and that many plants he listed have properties that may matter for migraine. [5] That is an author's comparison with laboratory-type findings (preclinical), not trial evidence that those plants treat migraine. Proper evidence not found from trials for the Canon's remedies as a group.

Read "firsts" with care

Claims that Avicenna was the first to describe something are common. One otolaryngology review checked the Canon against the Arabic original and found that he may have described the cochlea long before its Western discovery, but also found obscure passages and misinterpretations in the literature, and urged readers to stay critical of historical texts. [4]

Related pages

Dioscorides and the materia medica tradition, Western herbal traditions and ancient Greek medicine.