2.3.5

Translating Knowledge & Key Scholars

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Developments in Science and Medicine

Baghdad was the centre of science and medicine in the Muslim world. Its knowledge would help shape the study of medicine and health worldwide.

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Translating knowledge

  • Al-Ma'mun, Caliph from AD 813-833, set up a translating house in Baghdad. Scholarly books and writings from around the world could be translated into Arabic.
  • These books would be translated into Latin in the 11th century and would circulate around Christian Europe.
  • Some of the knowledge used in Europe originated from the Muslim world.
    • This shows how important Arabic and Islamic knowledge was for the rest of the world.
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Saving knowledge

  • Arab Muslims learned how to examine a patient using alcohol as an antiseptic and preparing medicine. They also made advances with anaesthetics, which were used to put people to sleep before surgery.
  • Muslim scholars in Baghdad found and translated Galen's work.
  • Galen, an Ancient Greek doctor, proved that arteries carry blood, discovered nerves, and developed new methods for performing surgeries.
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Rhazes

  • Muslim scholars also made their own medical discoveries.
  • Al-Razi (Rhazes) wrote nearly 200 books on medicine in the 10th century. This included a huge medical encyclopedia that listed many diseases.
    • He was the first author to have written a book that focused on children's diseases.
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Rhazes cont.

  • Rhazes was able to explain the difference between smallpox and measles. He helped doctors find differences between the two in their patients.
  • Rhazes was not afraid to disagree with earlier doctors. He even challenged some of Galen's writings.
  • A painting of Rhazes was made in Europe 300 years after his death.

Jump to other topics

1The Medieval World: 450-1450 AD

1.1Anglo-Saxon England

1.2The Contest for the English Throne

1.3Conquering the Holy Land, 10-96-1396 AD

1.4King John

1.5The Magna Carta & Parliament

1.6The Black Death

2Worldviews

3The Empire of Mali

4The Renaissance & Reformations, 1500-1598 AD

5The British Empire, 1583-1960 AD

6The Peasants' Revolt

7Religion in the Middle Ages

8Slavery, 1619-1833 AD

9The English Civil War, 1642-1660

10The Industrial Revolution, 1750-1840

11US Independence, 1775-1783

12The French Revolution, 1789-1815

13The British Empire, 1857–1930

14Suffrage

15World War 1, 1914-1918

16The Inter-War Years, 1919-1939

17World War 2, 1939-1945

18The Cold War, 1947-1962

19Civil Rights in the USA, 1954-1975

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