The Biography Of Avicenna - An Author Of Medical Books

Medicine has come a long way. What once was considered un-curable is now easily remedied with a quick trip to the doctor’s office. Medicine has gone through many stages of progress to get to its current state. Many prolific professors and doctors have made large contributions to medical thought to help spur medicine to its next stage. One of these people to contribute to early medical thought was Avicenna, also known as Ibn Sina in Arabic texts. Avicenna devoted much of his life to medicine. Many of his teachings and practices were progressive especially compared to the early medieval medicine of Europe at the time. He also continued upon the medical knowledge that ancient Greek physicians and philosophers left behind. He kept alive their medical tradition while Europe was going through its intellectual decline in the early Medieval Age. A lot of his medical practices are still relevant in medicine to this day.

Therefore I am going to undergo the task of elucidating his medical achievements and the subsequent impacts he had on medieval European medicine. First I will discuss Avicenna’s life. It is important to know about how he was raised in order to understand where and how he came up with his medical discoveries. Secondly I will talk about the medical knowledge that Avicenna gained. I will be drawing heavily from what he wrote in the Canon of Medicine since that is considered his most comprehensive surviving text. I will finish off with a discussion on Avicenna’s influence on European medicine during the Medieval Age.

Avicenna’s biography

There are various texts concerning Avicenna’s life. Avicenna himself wrote an autobiography, called the Sirat al-Shaykh al-Ra’is. Avicenna recounts much of his early life in his biography. One of his pupils, by the name of Abu Ubayd al-Juzajani, continued the biography based on what he witnessed and heard from Avicenna. He continued the biography after the point in which he became Avicenna’s pupil. William E. Gohlman used these original Arabic manuscripts in order to write a concise and more accurate English translation than the previous Arberry translation. I will be referencing the Gohlman translation of the Sirat al-Shaykh al-Ra’is to discuss Avicenna’s biography.

Avicenna’s parents were Balkh and Sitara (Avicenna & Gohlman 16). He was born in 980 near the city of Bukhara, in what is modern day Uzbekistan. His father worked in the government, being in charge of one of the villages in the area. Avicenna was tutored by two different teachers in his childhood. One teacher taught him everything regarding the Quran. The other teacher allowed him to indulge in other various literatures. By the age of ten, Avicenna had already finished reading the Quran and other books. Afterwards, his father sent him to study under a vegetable seller in order to learn Indian calculation methods. During this period, he also studied jurisprudence as well as philosophy. His philosophy teacher was amazed at the pace that Avicenna was learning at as well as his ability to conceptualize difficult concepts. He continued to learn everything from the philosopher but eventually his knowledge had surpassed his teacher’s so Avicenna began to study logic and philosophy on his own. After learning about logic and philosophy, Avicenna quickly devoured texts on geometry, natural science, and metaphysics. It was at this moment where his passion for learning blossomed as well as his journey towards medicine.

Throughout his preteen years and early teenage years, he quickly learned everything that was known about medicine at the time. His mastery was so complete, that distinguished physicians would come to study medicine under him. Avicenna was sixteen years old at the time. He was a blossoming intellectual. He would devote himself day and night to studying and learning. Mastery of philosophy and logic occurred first for him. Then came the mastery of the natural sciences and mathematical sciences. After that, he went on to study and master metaphysics. He first started by reading the Metaphysics by Aristotle. As you can see, there was a lot of transmission of Greek texts to the Middle East so Avicenna had access to the writings of many Greek intellectuals. After reading, memorizing, and then reading an Arabic commentary on the Metaphysics, Avicenna was able to comprehend the meaning of Aristotle’s teaching.

Avicenna’s first incursion into treating patients occurred when the Sultan, or Governor, of Bukhara came down with an illness. The Sultan had melancholia and was also delusional. The Sultan thought that he was a cow and he also had bouts of extreme depression. His personal doctors could not understand what it was that was ailing him and so because of Avicenna’s reputation as an intellectual; he was summoned to treat the Sultan. Avicenna took part in treating the Sultan and helped to cure him of his ailments. Avicenna then asked if he could study all of the books in the Sultan’s private library. He was given permission and quickly devoted himself to studying all the relevant texts in the library. By eighteen, he had completed all of the books in the Sultan’s library.

Around the age of twenty one, Avicenna began writing his own books. This started because people in his town would ask him to write texts on the sciences and ethics for them. He wrote The Compilation, The Sun and Substance, and Good Works and Evil during this time. After his father died, Avicenna took over one of the administrative posts for the Sultan. He left Bukhara and travelled to various towns and villages, finally ending up in Jurjan. From here onwards, the biography was continued by Abu Ubayd through his perspective. A man in Jurjan had bought a house for Avicenna to live in (Al-Juzajani & Gohlman 45). There Abu Ubayd would attend to Avicenna every day and would study under him. This was where Avicenna wrote the first part of the Canon of Medicine. After his stay in Jurjan, Avicenna moved to al-Rayy and worked under the Sultan, named Majd al-Dawla, of the city. He treated Majd of his melancholia but during this time Shams al-Dawla, Majd al-Dawla’s brother, took over the city. Shams al-Dawla later returned to his original city of Hamadhan after staying in al-Rayy for a year. Avicenna moved to Hamadhan as well. Shams al-Dawla was afflicted with the colic and asked for Avicenna to treat him. The colic was characterized by pain in the abdomen. After Avicenna cured him of his colic, Shams al-Dawla left for war.

During this time, Avicenna became the leader of the vizierate, or court, however the troops mutinied against him. They ransacked his house and imprisoned him. After returning, Shams al-Dawla exiled Avicenna after hearing what the troops told him. After suffering pain in his colon, he would end up calling for Avicenna’s return apologetically though. Avicenna treated him and regained his position in the vizierate. Avicenna then began writing the Physics of Healing. It was at this time that Shams al-Dawla died from an illness while on a war expedition. Shams al-Dawla’s son, Sama al-Dawla, became the new sultan. The vizierate wanted Avicenna to be the vizer, or leader of the court, but he refused. Avicenna had no interest in politics; he simply wanted to further his knowledge. Due to political turmoil in the vizierate, Avicenna went into hiding and finished writing the Physics of Healings. Government officials captured Avicenna and locked him away in a castle because they found out that Avicenna had supported Ala al-Dawla to be the leader of the city instead of Sama. Ala al-Dawla would have been able to provide the stability that Avicenna wanted so that he could focus on studying. He was imprisoned in the castle for four months.

During his imprisonment, he still wrote his texts. Avicenna managed to write The Colic there. Ala al-Dawla eventually seized the castle and freed Avicenna. After being set free, Avicenna left for Isfahan. In Isfahan, he was treated with respect by Ala al-Dawla. Ala al-Dawla introduced a day each week where all the scholars of the city could sit and learn with Avicenna. During his stay at Isfahan, Avicenna managed to finish the Physics of Healing. Ala al-Dawla trusted Avicenna so much, he made him a member of his vizierate and also allocated funds so that Avicenna could study and write on astronomy. Avicenna quickly finished up his work on astronomy and started doing experiments on medical practice. The results of his experiments helped him to write more in the Canon of Medicine. His experiments were largely based on his anecdotal experiences treating illnesses. For example, he had a headache and so decided to try crushing ice to help with the minor swelling in his head. From this he managed to deduce that ice helped with swelling. He eventually finished the Canon of Medicine but was unable to add his commentary on it due to real life complications.

He continued to study and write in Isfahan under Ala al-Dawla. Tash Farrash, an officer of the Ghaznavid empire, was marching towards Isfahan and Ala al-Dawla was fighting on the front lines. During this time, Avicenna was being afflicted by the colic in Isfahan. He wanted to heal quickly in case he would have to retreat from the city on account of Ala al-Dawla’s loss. Eventually he had to march to where Ala al-Dawla was fighting however he still was suffering from the colic. He would also have seizures sometimes during the march. To compensate, Avicenna treated himself heavily with enemas and even wanted a little bit of celery seeds put in to speed up the recovery.

The doctor that was ordered to do that however put in too much celery seeds and caused abrasions in his digestive tract. Avicenna was also taking mithridate to help with the seizures. Mithridate was previously used as an antidote for poisoning but Avicenna was using it for seizures. One of his slaves, who had secretly stolen money from him, put opium in the mithridate to try to kill Avicenna. Even with all these problems, Avicenna still managed to make it to Ala al-Dawla. Here he would lapse from being healthy to being ill. When Ala al-Dawla left for Hamadhan with Avicenna, he got ill again and had lost all of his strength by the time they reached Hamadhan. At this point, Avicenna decided to stop treating himself. He knew that his time had come and so treatment was unnecessary for him. A few days later, Avicenna died from his illness in the year 1037. He died at the age of 58, leaving behind many works on philosophy, astronomy, the sciences, and medicine for future generations to learn from.

The canon of medicine

The Canon of Medicine was Avicenna’s leading text on his medical knowledge. It sets forth all of Avicenna’s theories on medicine as well as practical applications for treatment. Avicenna took what he learned from Aristotle, Galen, and Hippocrates, and synthesizes their teachings with his own knowledge gained from Chinese, Indian, and Middle Eastern medicine in order to compose the Canon. It is split into five books. I will only focus on the first book since it sets the general framework for Avicenna’s views on medicine. The first book is split into a theoretical section and a general practical section on medicine. The theoretical section starts off with a discussion on his theories of medicine and his view on how the human body functions. Avicenna begins with defining what medicine is. For Avicenna, medicine is strictly a science that people use to figure out the different states of the body.

Medicine is figuring out what makes the body healthy, what gets rid of its health, and how to go about restoring the health (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). By defining what medicine is, Avicenna sets the framework and goal for any reader that is reading his book. As a physician, you should be familiar with both the symptoms of a healthy person as well as the symptoms of a sick person. You should also know what the causes of health and disease are. Avicenna is promoting a logical approach to medicine. Avicenna then goes on to state that the ways to preserve health and eliminate disease is by managing food and drink, having good air quality, having periods of rest and exercise, treatment by drugs, and physical manipulation. As you can see, Avicenna includes exercise and diet as impactful to health preservation. Modern medicine only recently has started to urge patients to pay attention to their diets and exercise.

The elements are discussed next. The classical elements are viewed as the building blocks or the basics of all matter. Everything in the universe was composed of elements. Of course, even biological life was made up of elements. Elements were the prevalent thought on what the universe was constructed of before atoms were discovered. It provided a logical basis for the existence of the world (Macauley 14). The concepts of elements were present in Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian thought (Ferry 259-293). Avicenna’s concept is similar to the Greek version, due to his familiarity with Galen and Aristotle’s teachings. Aristotle had five elements; air, fire, earth, water, and aither. Aristotle attributed the aither element specifically to the stars (Lloyd 134). Avicenna instead chooses to omit aither, using only four elements. Avicenna believed that all matter was composed of Earth, Fire, Water, and Air (Avicenna, “Avicenna’s Medicine” 1-437). Earth is a simple, stationary body that is very heavy. It is cold and dry. It confers firmness, stability, and preservation of shape and appearance to living things. Water is cold and moist and also a little heavy. It surrounds earth and is surrounded by air. Water helps to facilitate the appearance of living things. Air is one of the lighter elements. It is hot and moist and confers porosity and lightness to living beings.

Finally fire is the lightest of elements. It is hot and dry by nature and in living things it brings about ripeness. Fire enters the body through the breath. The two heavy elements bring about organ formation and stability while the lighter elements assist in the formation and movement of organs. This is what Avicenna has to say about the elements in relation to the functions of the body.