Posted on 09/10/2003 3:44:40 PM PDT by blam
Hospitals owe debt to Islam
By Steve Connor
11 September 2003
Modern medicine owes much to the scholars of the medieval Islamic world, who pioneered the diagnosis and treatment of human disease, a science historian told the conference.
The very first hospitals were built around AD800 in Baghdad and they were much more sophisticated than the simple monastic hospices that grew up in Western Europe several hundred years later, said Emilie Savage-Smith of St Cross College in Oxford.
The largest Islamic hospitals were built in Egypt and Syria in the 12th and 13th centuries. Patients were treated in wards dedicated to different illnesses, such as gastrointestinal complaints, eye ailments and fevers. "The establishment of an extensive system of hospitals was one of the greatest achievements of medieval Islamic society. It was in the context of these hospitals that the teaching of medicine at bedside was first introduced by Arabic-speaking physicians of the 10th century," Dr Savage-Smith said.
"In Islam there is a moral imperative to treat all the ill regardless of their financial status. These hospitals were open to all, male and female, civilian and military, rich and poor, Muslims and non- Muslims." The hospitals had several purposes: as a centre of medical treatment, a convalescent home for those recovering from illness or accident, an insane asylum and a retirement home giving basic maintenance needs for the aged and infirm who lacked a family to care for them.
As well as translating and interpreting the works of classical Greek medicine, Islamic scholars wrote a vast medical reference library to understand disease, pain, injuries and childbearing.They described infectious diseases such as smallpox and eye conditions such as catar-acts and successfully did minor operations such as tonsillectomies.
For a thousand years, Islamic physicians kept alive the traditions of classical medicine from Greece and Rome.
No, it was medieval medicine that owed much to them.
One of the reasons for the Islamogascis is precisely that the MODERN world owes them absolutely nothing. Even oil in their soil they cannot get out by themselves.
Caused way too many innocents to end up in the hospitals.
Was the Islam of Old Spain Truly Tolerant?
(The Religion of Peace and its idea of inclusiveness)
The New York Times | September 27, 2003 | Edward Rothstein
Posted on 09/27/2003 1:05:33 PM PDT by quidnunc
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/990694/posts
Where Thought Flowered
(The West Owes a Great Debt to the Intellectual Scholarship of Arabs)
Baltimore Sun | April 5, 2009 | Stephen O’Shea
Posted on 04/13/2009 8:59:52 AM PDT by nickcarraway
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2228051/posts
The Real History of the Crusades
crisismagazine | April 1, 2002 | Thomas F. Madden
Posted on 11/22/2003 4:23:29 PM PST by dennisw
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1027242/posts
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What have they ever really accomplished in their history except to conquer a good bit of asia back in the day and kill off a lot of unbelievers?
Today they are a backward lot, living in 750 AD, killing off their women for just about any reason and passing it off as an "honor" killing, making slaves of their women, killing off infidels when they can get away with it and trying to sew terror around the world, raping women with impunity and then punishing the women for it.
These are just some of their barbaric practices, the ones who don't practice all of these acts, condone them and don't condemn it, therefore they must share in the blame for these despicable acts.
Uh... Galen of Rome was operating hospitals in the 2nd century AD.
Romans can greatly thank the Hellenistic Greeks and the Asians for their work in the medical field. The Romans followed up the scientific methods the Greeks and Asians used in their development of medicine. As Armour clearly notes, prior to this time, Romans went without an official medical profession for over 600 years. The head of the family would treat his family with folk remedies and sacrificial rites to the appropriate god. It wasn't until the Greeks began to arrive in Rome that medicine changed in Roman society. The medicine of ancient Rome helped set a standard and basis for today's medicine through Rome's conquest of Europe under Caesar (38).
The most famous doctor of ancient Rome was Galen. Some of Galen's contributions were:
* books on human anatomy, which were used up until the early eighteenth centuries
* taking one's pulse
* bloodletting
For more information go to Medicine of Ancient Rome.
To perhaps pour cold water on this article, islam didn’t have the first “hospitals”. The Romans had military hospitals associated with most major posts (although these were not hospitals in the modern sense of the word, they did treat non military personnel in the late Roman Empire). This fact is well documented. Constantine (c274-337) made Christanity the empire’s religion in 324 AD. Shortly thereafter Christians set up hospitals through out the empire.
Of course none of these hospitals (prior to knowing that germs caused diseases), were very similar to a modern hospital.
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