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How Great Muslim Scientists Founded Science of Anesthesia!
Prof. (Dr.) Anwar Ul Haque
Diplomat American Board of Pathology
Fellow College of American Pathologists
Head Department of Pathology
Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, Islamabad Pakistan
During the era of so called dark ages in Europe, a glittering and booming civilization was prevailing in great Islamic world. The light of Quran-e-Majeed had opened up the eyes and minds of Muslims. They had developed utmost love for education, research and extremely dedicated hard work. Great Muslim rulers like Haroon Rahsid, Mamoon Rashid and Mehmood Ghaznawi patronized the education and science to unparalleled examples. Seeking knowledge, doing original research and performing laboratory experiments was the order of the day. The rulers enjoyed the company of the genuine scholars and they funded all their research projects with keen interest and provided valuable manpower and other resources.
Soon Muslim scientists founded the discipline of "Laboratory Sciences" and built hospitals. Khalifa Walid founded the first ever hospital while Haroon Rashid laid the foundation of second hospital and then there were chains of high quality, highly disciplined hospitals. When there were 100 hospitals alone in the city of Qurtubah (Cordoba) there were none in the entire Europe which took 300 years to make first hospital in Paris. Each hospital was built where the environment was pure and with least chance of infections. Each hospital carried a botanical garden to get herbal medicines and to carry out research. Muslim physicians like Ibn-e-Sina and Razi experimented on numerous drugs. Ibn-e-Sina compiled a very valuable pharmacopeias containing over 700 drugs. He described their therapeutic as well as toxic doses. Khalifa of Baghdad used to issue the Medical licenses to the qualified physicians. Autopsies were performed on apes as Great Muslim Surgeon and truly father of Surgery Qasim Az Zahrawi had clearly warned that no surgeons should put his knife at any place without first knowing about the underlying arteries, veins and nerves. Muslims had developed proper faculty system and gave appointments to the qualified and competent physicians disregarding their religion or origin; a fact well admitted by the prominent Jewish physicians of today! The Muslim hospitals had isolation wards and Muslim Surgeons were performing surgeries using cat gut and other sutures using proper aseptic techniques under local and systemic inhalation anesthesia.
Several different anesthetic agents had been discovered. Clean, painless and complication surgeries were the hall mark of Muslim Surgeons which attracted dignitaries from all of over Europe to the Muslim Hospitals. Ibn-e-Sina's "Al-Qanoon fit Tib" and Abul Qasim Zahrawi's "At-Tasreef" remained standard text book of medicine and standardtext book of surgery for next 700 years in the medical schools of Europe.
Nervous system anatomy knowledge acquired by Muslim physicians enabled them to know its physiology represented by its excitability and its conductibility, and to understand pain physiology. Ibn-e-Sina described anesthetic drugs and their side effects. Among these anesthetic means there were opium and ice. He distinguished organic pain and psychogenic pain. He used sedative and analgesic and soporific drugs in treatment of some psychological diseases as melancholia. Muslim physicians were the first to use cold water to treat superficial burns. Anesthesia which lead to deep sleep to facilitate surgical operations by oral, nasal( inhalation) and rectal route were well described by Ibn-e-Sina who indicated dosage to achieve three or four hour anesthesia which was necessary in an amputation surgery.
References
1) History of the Arabs by Philp K. Hitti (Palgrave, Macmillan)
2) Great Books of Islamic Civilization by N. A. Balouch Pakistan Hijra Council
3) Islam and Evolution of Science by Muhammad Saud, Islamic research Institute
4) Muslim Scientists and Scholars by Pharm Evo (pVT) Ltd
5) The Muslim Scientists by Muhammad Yasin Owadally A. S. Noordeen Baltimore Maryland, USA
6) [Anesthesia and resuscitation in Arabo-Islamic medicine: analytic study through Ibn Sina] [Article in Arabic] Ben Rejeb A, Mamissi N.
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