A philosopher, politician and writer, Avicenna was also a highly respected physician. In fact, his Canon of Medicine continued to influence many generations of doctors up to the 17th century – in both the east and the west.

Born in Bukhara – in present-day Uzbekistan – Avicenna is still recognised today as one of the most erudite and renowned eastern scholars. His mother tongue was Persian and he translated works by Hippocrates and Galen but was mainly influenced by Aristotle.

Avicenna produced 456 works in Arabic and 23 in Persian. The most famous of these is, without question, the Canon of Medicine, a 5-volume medical encyclopaedia containing 1 million words! In this work, Avicenna lists all the illnesses known as that time.

For example, he describes two forms of facial paralysis (central and peripheral), the symptoms associated with cataracts, meningitis and diabetes – and was one of the first to make the link between diabetes and obesity. He suggests the role of rats in spreading the plague and that certain infections could be transmitted via the placenta. And he also describes a rather bizarre blood flow system operating between the heart and the lungs… But some of his suggestions remain very relevant today, such as the need to take regular exercise.

His writings were taught and explored by many physicians around the world and continued to be so up to the 17th century, despite being challenged from the Renaissance onwards, in particular by Leonardo da Vinci who rejected Avicenna’s version of anatomy. In fact, it was not until the English physician William Harvey described the mechanism of blood circulation that Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine was finally considered obsolete.

Source: Destination Sante (France)