SURGERY& AL-ZAHRAWIThe Father of Modern Surgery

■ Abū al-Qāsim Khalaf ibn al-‘Abbās al-Zahrāwī (936–1013), (Arabic: أبو القاسم خلف بنالعباس الزهراوي ) , popularly known as Al-Zahrawi , (الزهراوي ) Latinised as Abulcasis(from Arabic Abū al-Qāsim), was an Arab Muslim physician and surgeon who lived in Al-Andalus

■ Born in the city of El- Zahra,Cordoba.

■ Mostly live in Cordoba

■ Died in 1013, 2 years before the sacking of El Zahra

■ Al-Zahrawi was a court physician to the Andalusian caliph Al-Hakam II

Historiography

■ Abu Muhammad bin Hazm (993 – 1064)

- listed him among the greatest physicians of Moorish Spain

■ Al-Humaydhi

- Jadhwat al-Muqtabis (On Andalusian Savants),

CONTRIBUTIONS

Abdominal pregnancy

the embryo or fetus is growing and developing outside the womb in the abdomen, but not in the Fallopian tube, ovary or broad ligament

Haemophilia

■ is a mostly inherited genetic disorder that impairs the body's ability to make blood clots, a process needed to stop bleeding

■ This results in people bleeding longer after an injury, easy bruising, and an increased risk of bleeding inside joints or the brain

■ Catgut as the thread for internal stitches

■ use foreceps in childbirth, greatly decreasing the mortality rate of babies and mothers

■ He performed tonsillectomies with the same tongue depressors, hooks, and scissors used today

■ He performed mastectomies removing a woman’s breast if she had breast cancer, a procedure still done today.

Kitab At-Tasrif

■ 30 Volumes

■ More than 300 disease as well as their treatments

■ Dentistry and childbirth

■ contained data that had accumulated during a career that spanned almost 50 years of training, teaching and practice.

■ introduced over 200 surgical instruments

■ 1. on cauterization (56 sections);

■ 2. on surgery (97 sections),

■ 3. on orthopaedics (35 sections).

The page shows his definition of medicine, quoted from Al-Razi, as the preservation of health in healthy individuals and its restoration to sick individuals as much as possible by human abilities

■ The importance of a positive doctor-patient relationship and wrote affectionately of his students, whom he referred to as "my children“

■ Observation is more important than the confession

■ He takes holistic approach in health issue ;

■ “[Alcohol causes] general weakness of most of the nerves of the body, difficulties in articulation, weakness of voluntary movements, arthralgias, gout, etc.. disturbances of the liver which causes tumors and obstructions which is a definite cause of ascites and general ill health”

Liber Servitoris

■ pharmacy and pharmacology

■ Al-Zahrawi pioneered the preparation of medicines by sublimation and distillation

■ provides the reader with recipes and explains how to prepare the "simples" from which were compounded the complex drugs then generally used

On Surgery and Instruments

■ llustrated surgical guide written by Al-Zahrawi

■ draws diagrams of each tool used in different procedures to clarify how to carry out the steps of each treatment

■ 3 books

■ intended for medical students looking forward to gaining more knowledge within the field of surgery regarding procedures and the necessary tools.

Iqra’ culture

■ “…whatever skill I have, I have derived for myself by my long reading of the books of the Ancients and my thirst to understand them until I extracted the knowledge of it from them. Then through the whole of my life I have adhered to experience and practice…I have made it accessible for you and rescued it from the abyss of prolixity”

Legacy

■ The foremost text book in Western Christendom

■ "most frequently cited surgical authority of the Middle Ages“ (Mikaberidze, Alexander, ed. (2011). Conflict and Conquest in the Islamic World: A Historical Encyclopedia: A Historical Encyclopedia. )

■ Pietro Argallata (d. 1453) described Al-Zahrawi as "without doubt the chief of all surgeons“

■ Cerrahiye-tu l-Hanniyye in 1460 by Serefeddin Sabuncuoglu (1385-1468)

■ William Hunter (1717-1783) used At-Tasrif for his study on Aneurysm