The Analysis Of Some Diseases' Symptoms According To Avicenna's Works

The organs all also have a unique temperament. The warmest organ is the breath and the heart, followed by the blood (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). The liver, lungs, and flesh are the next warmest organs. Flesh and muscle are cold because of the nerves and ligaments present in them. Kidneys lack blood so they are also cold. Skin, brain, nerves, bones, cartilage, fat, and hair all have the coldest temperaments in the body. In terms of wetness, the list in order of descending moisture is phlegm, blood, fat, brain, genitals, lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, muscles, and finally skin. Avicenna mentions that he used the same classification as Galen here. This is one of the many examples where Avicenna was influenced by Galen. He then goes on to mention that the hair and bone are the two driest organs. Age and gender also give rise to different temperaments. Younger people tend to have a hot, moist temperament compared to the dry, cold temperament of the elderly. Females also tend to have colder temperaments than males. Geography plays a role in temperament too. Avicenna states that inhabitants of northern countries have a moister temperament compared to drier temperaments of southern countries. This is all Avicenna has to say on the detailed aspect of temperament.

The humors were a concept developed in ancient Greece and Egypt (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). The concept of humors was then transmitted to Avicenna though Galen’s and Aristotle’s texts. Avicenna defines humors as a moist, runny substance that originates from food. The food is digested and then components of the food form the humors of the body. There are primary and secondary humors. The primary humors are blood, phlegm, yellow bile, and black bile. These are the traditional humors found in Greek texts. Avicenna diverges here and adds waste and non-waste tissue humors as well. Non-waste tissue humors are humors that have entered the organ but have not completely assimilated into the organ yet. Waste humors get excreted from the body. Humors are digested in the stomach and go through the intestines. This digested food is then transported through the portal veins and enters the liver. In the liver, the digested food is further cooked. Here the portions of the digested food separate into their respective humors. More contemporary views on humors state that we can think of humors as the macromolecules of food; fats, carbohydrate, and proteins. Thus when viewed through this perspective, we can see that Avicenna is talking about the digestion and breakdown of food into their macromolecules which go on to nourish the body.

Avicenna’s next section focuses on the faculties. The faculties are the sense, capabilities, or functions of an organ. There are three main types of faculties (Avicenna, “Treatise” 107). Psychic faculties are the conscious and subconscious mind. They function in providing behavior, movement, and sensation. They are also involved in providing motivation and desires for things. The natural faculties are split up into preservation and reproductive (Avicenna, “Treatise” 110). The preservation faculty resides in the liver and it serves to provide nutrition to the body so that it may survive. The reproductive faculty is present in the gonads and function to produce new offspring. Finally the animalistic/vital faculties are involved in preserving the integrity of the breath. The center of the animalistic/vital faculty is the heart based on Aristotle’s views (Avicenna, “Treatise” 110). This concludes Avicenna’s section on the faculties.

The next section focuses on Avicenna’s disease concept. For Avicenna, a physician should focus on the cause of a disease (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). The symptom is merely a reflection of the state of the disease. The disease concept is not rigid however. A symptom can become the cause for another disease. The state of the body also changes depending on whether it is diseased. A healthy individual has no disease and their temperament is normal. A diseased person has an abnormal temperament. And the third state is where a person is recovering from a disease but is not yet fully healthy. There are four different types of diseases that a physician should know of. Diseases of form or shape result in abnormal shapes or organs or vessels. Diseases of size result in a decrease or increase of size of an organ or body part. The third type is the diseases of numbers, which come from in an increase or decrease in the number of body parts or organs. And lastly are the diseases of position, which results in an abnormal position of an organ/body part or abnormal movement of a body part. These are all the kinds of diseases that Avicenna tells physicians to look out for. For Avicenna, most diseases have four phases. Incipience is the onset of disease. Increment is when the symptoms start increasing to their peak. Acme is the peak state of the disease. Decline is the phase where health slowly starts to return. These are the main takeaways on Avicenna’s theory of disease.

As mentioned previously, all diseases have a cause. Diseases can be caused by predisposition, external factors, and connection (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). Predisposing causes are bodily issues resulted from humors, temperaments, or body structures. They don’t cause any changes in the health status. They need another agent to cause a change. Predisposing causes merely provide an avenue for agents to cause a change in the health status. Connecting causes are also bodily issues but unlike predisposition, they can cause a change in health status without any agent. External causes result from environmental factors, dietary issues, or psychological problems. Not all causes result in diseases. There are also essential causes. These are factors that are present all the time that normally contribute to a healthy state. Air quality, types of food and drinks, amounts of food eaten, physical activity, sleep, and psychological state. These essential causes all contribute to the health of a human on a daily basis. Avicenna explains that the air you breathe should be clean from smoke and other impurities. The food you eat should be of good quality and nutritious. That sleep is important in strengthening the natural faculties. That movement such as jogging or walking is beneficial to the body. What Avicenna is stating is that a person’s lifestyle and environment contributes greatly to having a healthy body and that certain diseases develop from a mismanagement of lifestyle. This concept only recently became popular in western medicine. All problems with the body were treated with drugs first and foremost instead of appreciating that lifestyle, or essential causes, perhaps resulted in the disease.

During a time when medical technology had not really advanced to where accurate readings of the body’s state could be given, Avicenna gave physicians other tools to diagnose diseases. He taught physicians how to observe symptoms of diseases through the pulse. The pulse is an indicator of the health of the heart (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). Since physicians didn’t have access to the heart, they had to rely on the pulse to tell them about the heart’s condition. The pulse consists of two movements and two rests. The pulse should be examined from the left forearm due to the ease of access, the ease in detecting the pulse, and the straightforward position near the heart. Avicenna stresses the importance of checking the pulse while the individual is calm and hasn’t overeaten as that can affect the pulse. When examining the pulse, you should check for the strength, speed, amount of expansion, regularity, rhythm, compressibility, volume, temperature, duration of the diastole, and the constancy.

Of course since Avicenna stresses the importance of individualized medicine, he makes sure to talk about the differences in pulse for genders and age groups. Males tend to have a slower pulse than females. Children’s pulses are softer, weaker, and more frequent. Adult’s pulses are large and can lean towards being irregular. When you get old, your pulse is weak and slow. It is also irregular at this age. The external temperature can also effect the pulse. Pulses are fast and weak in the summer while they are weak and slow in the winter. The fall has an irregular and weak pulse. The pulse in the spring is equitable in all its aspects. Food and drink can also impact the pulse and so the physician should be aware of its effects. Eating a large amount of food can cause an irregularity in the pulse. Drinking a lot of alcohol also can cause an irregularity in the pulse. Drinking water on the other hand strengthens the pulse. A trembling, fast, and frequent pulse is symptomatic of a hot swelling somewhere in the body. Soft swellings make the pulse wavy while cold swellings make the pulse slow and irregular. Knowing the pulse also allows the physician to know the state of swelling in the body. The pulse can even indicate where a swelling may be occurring. Swelling in the nervous organ causes a saw-like pulse while swelling in the veins can result in a large an unequal pulse. Swelling in soft, moist organs will result in a wavy pulse. Avicenna was also aware that psychological states such as anger or fear can increase the pulse. Avicenna devoted a large section of his book on the pulse due to its value as a tool for physicians.

Other characteristics that Avicenna observed for disease diagnosis were the observation of the patient’s urine and feces. Urine and feces can be an indicator of the health of the liver (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). Urine can also be an indicator for the state of the urinary tract. Urine examinations should only be trusted if the urine was the first of the morning, it hasn’t stagnated, food or drink wasn’t recently consumed, no coloring dyes were ingested with the food or drink, and the patient has rested for a while. If all of these conditions are met, then the urine is viable for examination. Even then Avicenna makes sure to let readers know that fasting, lack of sleep, fatigue, and hunger can all cause changes in the urine and tamper with the examination. When examining urine, the color, texture, clarity, sedimentation, quantity, odor, and foam should all be taken into consideration. Taste and touch can also be used but Avicenna doesn’t recommend it due to its repulsiveness to him. Normal, healthy urine is of moderate texture, gentle in color, has a citron-like color, and has white sediment. This should be the benchmark when examining urine. In regards to the age groups, children’s and infant’s urine are difficult to examine for indicators. Adult’s urine will be whitish and thin while the urine of the elderly is very thin and white. Women tend to have thicker and whiter urine than men. When using feces for examination, there are a few characteristics that the physician should pay attention to. The quantity, texture, color, and speed of evacuation are all aspects of the stool that should be examined. With this Avicenna has finished discussing the theoretical aspects of medicine. The rest of the first book focuses on general practical knowledge on maintaining a healthy body as well as the management of a sick body.

The next few sections focus on health preservation of the various age groups. As you will notice, these sections give a lot of information that is relevant to everyone who wants to live a healthy life. The first section discusses the infants and children. When the baby is born, they should be gently washed with lightly salted water to strengthen the skin (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). A few drops of oil should be placed in the eyes and the nostrils should be cleaned with the fingers. Gently apply pressure to the top of the bladder to encourage urination. When the baby is sleeping, the baby’s hands should be spread with the arms placed next to the knee. The head should be covered with a hat and the room should be neither too hot nor too cold. Parents should make sure that the baby’s head is slightly elevated. The baby should be breast-fed as early as possible and should be fed two to three times a day. Feeding the baby a spoon of honey before breast-feeding is also good for the baby. The baby should be breast-fed for two years. Slowly introduce food to the baby’s diet when their teeth appear. Make sure to not force the baby to walk or sit before they are ready. This could cause problems with their legs or back. When the baby reaches childhood, focus on raising them with proper manners. During this time, letting the children play is beneficial for them. Children should also be encouraged to play a lot to get their exercise. When the child is a teenager, excessive play should be replaced with moderate exercise. This is Avicenna’s knowledge on health preservation from birth through childhood.