Rhazes Studies in Neuroscience

Biography of Rhazes

Abubakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (865–925 AD) is known to the western world as Rhazes. He is surely one of the most prominent medical scientists of the Islamic golden age. He was born in Ray, a city south of Tehran. Music and art were reportedly his earliest interests; he wrote an encyclopedia of music before the age of 30. Later, he was encouraged to study philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, chemistry, and medicine.

Rhazes in Baghdad

After finishing his medical studies in Baghdad he left to take charge of the hospital in his native city. He traveled widely in order to visit prestigious medical centers of his time, until in 907 he was appointed director of a large hospital in Baghdad, where he proved to be a great physician and a venerated teacher. When he decided to build a modern hospital in Baghdad and was looking for the location with the cleanest air, he placed pieces of meat in candidate locations and after a few days he selected the site where the meat was least rotten. Rhazes established a special section for the treatment of mental diseases in this hospital.

Medical Education

He created ward rounds for teaching at the patients’ bedside for his students. He also devised a system of medical education that included several consecutive rounds, of students with different levels of experience: the students in the first round were required to visit all patients and to try and answer all questions, the next round addressed the questions that had remained unanswered or patients whose disorder had not been diagnosed in the previous round, and in the final round Rhazes visited complex cases and answered professional questions.

Medical works of Rhazes

In the footsteps of previous scholars, Rhazes published all information about medical practice he could gather and supplemented it with his own findings and experiences. In total he wrote over 200 books and treatises on a variety of subjects. Two major medical contributions have been preserved, the Kitab al-Mansuri (Liber Al-Mansuri, a concise handbook of medical sciences) and Kitab al-Hawi (a comprehensive textbook of medical practice and treatment), also known as Liber Continens in a Latin translation of the 13th century and repeatedly reprinted in Europe in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Kitab-al-Hawi is an immense compendium containing 26 books on different medical issues, collected by his sister and his students after his death. The book forms a synthesis of Persian, Greek, Indian, and Arab medical knowledge, including his own observations and around 900 case reports, touching on almost every conceivable topic. He was not afraid to criticize Galen’s great authority, for example on his basic theory of the four humours. 

Rhazes and Neuroscience

The first book deals with neurological disorders such as paralysis and hemiplegia, tremor, seizures, injuries of the brain and spine, stroke, headaches, vertigo, fainting and stupor, asthenia, sciatic nerve disorder, and other peripheral nerve injuries. Although Rhazes has so far not been recognized as a pioneer in neurosciences, he made considerable contributions to neuroanatomy and clinical neurology. For example, he is credited with the introduction of a differential diagnosis in neurology, and also with applying anatomical principles in localizing lesions of the nervous system.

Reference:

• Zarshenas, Mohamad M; Mehdizadeh, Alireza; Zargaran, Arman; Mohagheghzadeh, Abdolali. Rhazes (865-925 AD). Journal of Neurology; Heidelberg Vol. 259, Iss. 5, (May 2012).
• Farhadi M, Behzadian Nejad G, Bagbanzadeh A (1996) Papers of the international congress of the history of medicine in Islam and Iran (Persian), vol 2. Iranian Institute for Science and Research Expansion, Tehran, Iran
• Goodrich JT (1997) Neurosurgery in the ancient and medieval worlds. In: Greenblatt SH (ed) A history of neurosurgery in its scientific and professional contexts. American Association of Neurological Surgeons, Park Ridge, IL, USA
• McCrory PR, Berkovic SF (2001) Concussion. The history of clinical and pathophysiological concepts and misconceptions. Neurology 57:2283–2289
• Naji MR (1999) The Islamic history and civilization in the Samanid realm (Persian). Symposium on the Samanid Civilization, History and Culture Press, Tehran, Iran