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Muslim pharmacy (Saydalah) as a
profession and a separate entity from medicine was recognized by
the beginning of the ninth century. This century not only saw the
founding and the increase in the number of privately owned
pharmacy shops in Baghdad and its vicinity, but in other Muslim
cities as well. Many of the pharmacists who managed them were
skilled in the apothecary's art and quite knowledgeable in the
compounding, storing, and preserving of drugs.
State-sponsored hospitals also had their own dispensaries attached
to manufacturing laboratories where syrups, electuaries,
ointments, and other pharmaceutical preparations were prepared on
a relatively large scale. The pharmacists and their shops were
periodically inspected by a government appointed official
"al-Muhtasib" and his aides. These officials were to
check the accuracy in weights and measures as well as the purity
of the drugs used. Such supervision was intended to prevent the
use of deteriorating compounded drugs and syrups, and to safeguard
the public.
This early rise and development of professional pharmacy in Islam
- over four centuries before such development took place in Europe
- was the result of three major occurrences: the great increase in
the demand for drugs and their availability on the market,
professional maturity, and the outgrowth of intellectual
responsibility by qualified pharmacists.
The ninth century in Muslim lands witnessed the richest period
thus far in literary productivity insofar as pharmacy and the
healing arts were concerned. This prolific intellectual activity
paved the way for still a greater harvest in the succeeding four
centuries of both high and mediocre caliber authorship. For
pharmacy, manuals on materia medica and for instructing the
pharmacist concerning the work and management of his shop were
circulating in increasing numbers. A few authors and their
important works will be briefly discussed and evaluated.
Abu
Hasan At-Tabari:
One
of the contributors to Muslim Pharmacy was Abu Hasan 'Ali at-Tabari.
He was born in 808. At about thirty years of age, he was summoned
to Samarra by caliph al-Mu'tasim (833-842), where he served as a
statesman and a physician. At-Tabari wrote several medical books,
the most famous of which is his Paradise of Wisdom, completed in
850. It contains discussions on the nature of man, cosmology,
embryology, temperaments, psychotherapy, hygiene, diet, and
diseases - acute and chronic - and their treatment, medical
anecdotes, and abstracts and quotations from Indian source
material. In addition, the book contains several chapters on
materia medica, cereals, diets, utilities and therapeutic uses of
animal and bird organs, and of drugs and methods of their
preparation.
At- Tabari urged that the therapeutic value of each drug be
utilized in accordance with the particular case, and the
practitioner should always choose the best of samples. He
explained that the finest types of samples come from various
places: black myrobalan comes from Kabul; clover dodder from
Crete; aloes from Socotra; and aromatic spices from India.
He was also precise in describing his therapeutics. He said, 'I
have tried a very useful remedy for swelling of the stomach; the
juices of the liverwort (water hemp) and the absinthium after
being boiled on fire and strained to be taken for several days.
Also, powdered seeds of celery (marsh parsley) mixed with giant
fennel made into troches and taken with a suitable liquid release
the wind in the stomach, joints and back (arthritis).
To strengthen the stomach and to insure good health he prescribed
'black myrobalan powdered in butter, mixed with dissolved plant
sugar extracted from licorice and this remedy should be taken
daily.' For storage purposes he recommended glass or ceramic
vessels for liquid (wet) drugs; special small jars for eye liquid
salves; lead containers for fatty substances. For the treatment of
ulcerated wounds, he prescribed an ointment made of juniper-gum,
fat, butter, and pitch. In addition, he warned that one mithqal
(about 4 grams) of opium or henbane causes sleep and also death.
The first medical formulary to be written in Arabic is al-Aqrabadhin
by Sabur b. Sahl, who died in 869. In it, he gave medical recipes
stating the methods and techniques of compounding these remedies,
their pharmacological actions, the dosages given of each, and the
means of administration. The formulas are organized in accordance
with their types of preparations into which they fit, whether
tablets, powders, ointments, electuaries or syrups. Each class of
pharmaceutical preparation is represented along with a variety of
recipes made in a specific form; they vary, however, in the
ingredients used and their recommended uses and therapeutic
effects. Many of these recipes and their pharmaceutical forms are
remindful of similar formulas given in ancient documents from the
Middle East and the Greco-Roman civilizations. What is unique is
the organization of Sabur's formulary-type compendium purposely
written as a guidebook for pharmacists, whether in their own
private drugstores or in hospital pharmacies.
Hunayn
bin Ishaq:
He
was an Arab scholar who died in 873. His translations of Plato,
Aristotle, Galen, Hippocrates, and the Neoplatonists made
accessible to Arab philosophers and scientists the significant
sources of Greek thought and culture.
Hunayn
was a Nestorian Christian who studied medicine in Baghdad and
became well versed in ancient Greek. He was appointed by Caliph
al-Mutawakkil to the post of chief physician to the court, a
position that he held for the rest of his life. He traveled to
Syria, Palestine, and Egypt to gather ancient Greek manuscripts.
And from his translators' school in Baghdad, he and his students
transmitted Arabic and (more frequently) Syriac versions of the
classical Greek texts throughout the Isl&257;mic world.
Especially important are his translations of Galen, most of the
original Greek manuscripts of which are lost.
Hunayn's
book of the Ten Treatises on the Eye was completed in 860. After
finishing the ninth treatise, the author felt the need for a
closing treatise to be devoted to compounded drugs for eye
medication. He extracted some recipes from earlier treatises and
added more prescriptions recommended by Greek authors.
As one obvious example of the uses and therapeutic values of using
compounded drugs, Hunayn gave that of the theriac - the universal
antidote against poisoning. Hunayn, who knew Greek, defined the
Greek word theriac as an animal that bites or snaps. Since these
antidotes were used against animal bites, the word eventually was
applied to all antidotes, especially when snake flesh was
incorporated.
Hunayn corrected the translation in Arabic of the major part of
Dioscorides', Materia Medica, undertaken by his associate Istifan
bin Basil (about mid ninth century) in Baghdad. Due to the
influence of this work, several books of materia medica were
written in Arabic. Dioscorides definitely influenced the writing
and direction of Sabur's formulary, which has been mentioned
earlier.
Hunayn’s Herbal treatise established the basis for Arabic
pharmacology, therapy, and medical botany. It also provided a
description of the physical properties of drugs, types, and means
of testing their purity, and usefulness. As a result, Muslim
pharmacology advanced beyond the Greco-Roman contribution. In
turn, this helped and influenced a similar development in Europe
through the Renaissance.
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