A Concise History of Science in India c8.s9.6

c8.s9.6

Both before and after Avicenna, a large number of medical men in the various parts of Muslim dominions produced, in Arabic or Persian, a large number of medical books according to Greek system, adapting or changing or improving its theory or practice in the light of their own experience. They anticipated the so-called modern theory of the circulation of blood as well as the germ theory. They made great strides in symptomatology, in special pathology, epidemiology, opthalmology, dietetics, toxicology and midwifery. They pointed out the connection between exophthalmos and goitre, introduced the process of bleeding for the treatment of cerebral haemorrhage and apoplexy, performed gastric lavage, used opotherapy, and could keep a patient unconscious for seven days. They invented many delicate surgical instruments, performed the amputation of the ovula and the excision of the whole tongue, removed the diseased bone from the skull and replaced it by that of a dog. They made important independent contributions to therapeutics, pharmacy and pharmaceutical techniques, and used many drugs and chemicals which were entirely unknown to the Greeks.a The Greek medicine, thus largely improved, partly modified and better systematized by the Arabic medical writers than by the Greeks, was carried to Europe during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The same system was brought to India by the Muslims in the eleventh century and cultivated and followed throughout the century for 800 years side by side with the Āyurvedic system. Perhaps India is the only country in which the two ancient systems of medicine are still in vogue side by side with the modern allopathic system.