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Dr. Abdal'ah Omrani
MOROCCO

ABSTRACT

The medicine, as a whole, is partly a fruit of revelation or inspiration and partly is a result of experience or practice. The Andalusian medicine is a mixture of the Copt chemistry, the remainders of the Greek and Roman culture.

After the conquest of Andalus, the physicians started to work in all the fields of science. They worked and wrote on the horoscope, the atmospheric influences and on alchemy. They suggested the best time for operations of phlebotomy and cupping and collection of medical herbs. They manufactured and sold, some medicaments and gold. They prepared liquids collyriums, syrups, ointments of a secret and a wonderful composition. They cured their patients by means of Necromancy.

When a new generation grew up, Andalusian medicine was liberated from every strange or ancestral influence. The physicians started to follow a new method of cure. For this purpose they used to examine and consider the patients', appetites, structures, characters, temperaments, and their ambients.

When the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Rahman got the manuscript of Dioscurides "Materia ,Medica", he arranged for its good translation which proved and provided a good opportunity for Andalusian scientists to serve and enrich the fields of Botany, Pharmacology and Medicine. Some of them wrote very useful books about these subjects of study. The study of Botany as a science, the practice of Medicine as a profession, the application of scientific theories as an art, all that became a nationalized Andalusian works

Later on, a pure Andalusian Islamic Medicine era started. The writings of Andalusian physicians dealt with Dietetics and Hygiene. They also wrote some treatises or books, handling of compound and uncompound medicaments, of healthy nutrition, nutritive elements, drinks, not by means of Empiric method but by virtue of Observation and Experience. There were some specialists for example Urayb ben Sa'id al-Katib in Obstetrics and Paediatrics and Abu Zakriyya Yahya b. Ishaq in venereal diseases.

Abul Qasim al-Zahrawi (d.1013) known to the Latins as Abulcasis, was in the Islamic Occident as the famous doctor Rhazes in the Orient. His greatest medical work "al-Tasrif' is composed of thirty sec- tions, the last of which deals with Surgery .This book which contains illustrations of author's invented instruments, influenced other Arabic authors, and helped to lay the foundati.ons of surgery in Europe.

Further, some celebrated physicians are worth to be mentioned in this paper e.g.lbn Bayya (Avempace), Ibn Tufayl, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Banu Zuhr (Avenzoar), Ibn Khatimah and al-Khatib.

* As the English translation of the full text could not be made available, we are publishing here the abstract only.

  Editors