Awesome read: “Islamic Medicine: 1000 Years Ahead of its Times”
This is an article I came across whilst researching for my project on Islamic contributions to optics. I personally find it an extraordinarily well written article that manages to really sum up the objectives of this course. The author, Ibrahim B. Syed, manages to cover nine different areas in which Islamic medicine was, as he so aptly puts it, ‘1000 years ahead of its times’. These areas range everything from the licensing of physicians in medical education to the origin of oral anesthetics. One of the many pieces of information that really blew my mind was that when impoverished patients were discharged from the hospital, they were provided with five gold pieces to support them during their period of recovery. Yes, you read that right. Instead of being hounded to pay hospital fees, destitute patients were given money.
Anyways, enjoy – it’s super easy to read and it’s only eight pages long.
http://www.ishim.net/ishimj/2/01.pdf