Canon of Medicine

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The first page of a copy of the 1597/98 canon
Avicenna as "Princeps (Aboali) Abinsceni (de medicina)" (woodcut, Venice 1520)
Facsimile of a Latin edition from 1484

The Canon of Medicine ( Arabic القانون في الطب, DMG al-Qānūn fī 'ṭ-Ṭibb ,' statute 'or' legal system of medicine ', borrowed from ancient Greek κανών kanón , German ' straight rod ' ,' rod ',' measuring stick ' ,' measuring stick ' ,' guide line ',' Norm '), Latin Canon medicinae , the best-known medical work by Ibn Sīnā, called Avicenna (died 1037), is a teaching and reference work. It is divided into five main sections ("books"). The "canon" was transmitted in Latin in the Middle Ages, has been used in European universities since the beginning of the 14th century, is often extensively commented on and has remained a standard work in medical education up to the 19th century. A critical complete edition has not yet appeared. However, as early as 1902 in their translation of the ophthalmological texts, Hirschberg and Lippert submitted critical comments on the contribution of Greek and Oriental doctors to Avicenna's canon.

The canon or Canon regarded as "guidance and control" the then state of knowledge especially on Galen , Avicenna which quoted verbatim in part, and the pharmaceutical writings based medicine in the medieval Islamic world together.

content

The canon of medicine is subdivided in detail. The Arabic title qānūn (Latin regula ) is borrowed from the Greek word kanón , the use of which Avicenna should have been known from Galen's mention of the canon of Polyklet in On the Doctrines of Hippocrates and Plato . The five books (Persian kitāb-hā , Latin libri ) are divided into units of matter (doctrinae), sub-units (fen), chapters (capitula) and summaries (summae).

The first book , begun by Avicenna in Gorgan , deals with general principles of medicine and contains a definition of medicine as a science that distinguishes theory and practice. The first book consists of four parts. The first part contains presentations on the cosmos, the four elements and their mixtures, as well as in detail on the theory of juices . Here Avicenna systematized the teachings of Galen of Pergamon for the first time . As a disease concept , they existed until the 19th century when they were replaced by cellular pathology ( Rudolf Virchow ) and medical microbiology ( Robert Koch ). The pulse and urine are primarily used for diagnosis . In the second part of the first book, Avicenna lists material, effecting, shaping and expedient causes as the causes of health and illness. This is supposed to help examine the human body in order to bring it back to health from illness. The doctor has five remedies at his disposal, as Avicenna presents in the third part, which is devoted to disease prevention, and in the fourth part, which deals with the therapy of diseases: nutritional therapy , good air, a balanced relationship between movement and rest and, lastly, the Treatment by purging drugs and measures or by surgical interventions.

The second book consists of two parts or treatises, namely an introduction consisting of six chapters and a medicament ( materia medica ) dealing with the active principles of the individual or simple medicines obtained from plants, minerals or animals and a detailed expansion of the Hippocratic-galenic Humoral pathology . In the first part, Avicenna starts with the primary qualities (warm, cold, moist, dry) (depending on age and season, as well as disease-causing in the case of a disproportion of their expression in the body) and explains how the mixture of different single drugs, which in this system itself warm or warming, cold or cooling, damp or humidifying or dry or drying influence them. The six intent chapters of the first tract are:

  1. About the complex ions of the individual drugs
  2. About recognizing the effectiveness of the individual drugs through testing
  3. About recognizing the effectiveness of the individual drugs through logical thinking
  4. About recognizing the activities of the individual drugs
  5. About the basis of assessment for drugs due to external influences
  6. About collecting the medicines and keeping them.

For the second chapter of the intent, Avicenna sets out seven conditions for the test to recognize the effectiveness of the individual drugs:

  1. The medicament or drug must not be influenced by a quality that does not belong to its essence (heat, cold or proximity to other complex ions).
  2. The drug on which the test is to be carried out must be an individual disease, ie it may only be used for individually occurring diseases, but not for combined diseases.
  3. The drug must be tried in two opposing conditions in order to check the effectiveness for cause and symptoms.
  4. The potency of the medicine must oppose the damaging disease force with equal strength.
  5. The time it takes for a drug to work should be noted. From this it can be concluded whether the symptoms or the cause of the suffering have been alleviated.
  6. The effect of the drug should be the same in all cases, or at least most of them.
  7. The test has to take place on humans and not on animals so that it does not show an incorrect result.

In the second part of the second book, single drugs (medicinal plants and minerals) are treated in alphabetical order in 758 chapters. They are systematically structured by keywords.

The third book is devoted to the anatomy of human organs and their diseases ( pathology and therapy ) from top to bottom according to the frequently encountered scheme “from head to toe” ( a capite ad calcem ). It starts with the anatomy of the brain and then treats related diseases such as epilepsy or stroke . In the end there are the excretory organs and their diseases. The extremities (arms and legs) are missing. They belonged in the field of surgery. Avicenna deals exclusively with " internal medicine " (including magical things from folk medicine) .

The fourth book lists external and internal injuries and diseases that spread throughout the body or occur in several places ( surgery and general diseases ). It begins with the fever, treats purulent ulcers (apostemata), nerve ailments , dislocations or dislocations, fractures , digestive problems, injuries caused by animals (animal bites, insect bites ), poisoning, skin diseases (rashes) and finally cosmetics . In the fourth book Avicenna mentions the Guinea worm or caused by this parasite dracunculiasis .

The fifth book is a pharmacological recipe book and deals with the production of around 650 remedies from several components ( antidotarium ). It contains some very complex medicines, including various Theriak -Preparations and Confekte , electuaries , medicinal oils, syrup preparations, pills and ointments . At the end there is a collection of short formulas for certain ailments and a list of the diseases with assignment of the drugs described above as well as a list of pharmacy measurements and weights.

Dissemination, reception and aftermath

The study of Avicenna's canon of medicine in Baghdad was established by the Nestorian doctor Ibn al-Tilmīdh († 1165). Its students spread the work or its content via Damascus to Cairo, where the canon was studied by the Damacen doctor and medical historian Ibn Abī Usaibiʿa († 1270). The canon became the standard work of medical university education not only in the Islamic world, from around 1130 also in Andalusia ( Córdoba ), but from the 13th century throughout Europe. Around 1170 a group around Gerhard von Cremona translated him and other standard Arabic works into Latin in Toledo, which was recaptured by Christianity in 1085 . This version was u. a. used in the school of Salerno . Towards the end of the 12th century Guido took advantage of Arezzo (the younger) the canon for its medicinal, especially purgatives performing treatise Liber mitis , which ushered in the medical Avicenna reception. A Hebrew translation followed in 1279. It was printed by the Gersonids in Naples in 1491 . A translation of the second and third books of the canon was part of the equipment of the Paris university library in 1395, as a library catalog compiled by the Franciscan Petrus de Vallibus testifies.

The Latin translation provided by Gerhard von Cremona was first printed in Milan in 1472, with the first edition only containing the third book of the canon (by the end of the century, however, eleven complete editions appeared, 15 incunabula in total and then another 21). The doctor Andrea Alpago from Belluno (1450–1521) , who worked at the Venetian embassy in Damascus, improved this translation in 1521 based on old Arabic manuscripts. After Andrea Alpago's death, his nephew and travel companion Paolo Alpago (Latinized Paulus Alpagus) published his father's work in 1527. The complete edition, equipped with Avicenna's tract De medicinis cordialibus and with an improved translation of the references to the source citations, called cantica , and supplemented with glossaries on Arabic plant and medicinal names, was printed in Venice by LA Juntae in 1527. In the 15th and 16th centuries the Latin canon was printed 36 times. An edition printed in Venice in 1507 was reprinted in Hildesheim in 1964. Another version was printed in Basel in 1556, and it was published as a facsimile in Tehran in 1976. The Arabic text was first printed in Rome in 1593. Nevertheless, in the 16th century the influence of the canon was already waning. The humanists preferred to use Greek and Roman authors than Avicenna. In Padua, however , the canon was still used for teaching in the early 18th century. The canon continues to be the subject of worldwide research. There is still no complete German translation.

Editions and translations

Among the editions and translations of the canon are the following:

Arabic
  • Digital copy : Libri quinque canonis medicinae. First print of the Arabic text (with the philosophical book of salvation in the appendix), Rome: Typographia Medicea , 1593 (Saab Medical Library, American University of Beirut, last accessed on January 12, 2014)
  • Peter Kirsten ( Petrus Kirstenius ): [Kitāb otūman qānūn al-qānūn…], id est: Liber secundus De Canone Canonis a Filio Sinà. Latin-Arabic, annotated partial edition. Wroclaw 1609.
  • Kitab Al-Qānūn fī ṭ-ṭibb. 3 volumes. Dar Sadir, Būlāq (Cairo) 1877; Reprint Baghdad / Beirut without year.
Latin (Renaissance and early modern times)
  • Liber canonis Avicenne revisus et ab omni errore mendaque purgatus summaque cum diligentia impressus. Paganius de Paganinis, Venice 1507; Reprints Olms, Hildesheim 1964 and 1998.
  • Principis Avic [ennae] Liber Canonis necnon de Medicinis cordialibus et Canticum from Andr [ea] Bell [unensi] ex antiquis Arabum originalibus ingenti laboratories summaque diligentia correcti atque in integrum restituti una cum interpretatione nominum Arabicorum quae partim mendosa partim incognita lectores antea norabantures. Giunta, Venice 1527.
  • Liber Canonis, De medicinis cordialibus et Cantica. Basel 1556, reprint: Tehran 1976 (the second edition, first printed in Venice in 1544, of the version of the medieval translation by Gerhard von Cremona revised by Andrea Alpago in 1527 )
  • Peter Kirsten ( Petrus Kirstenius ): [Arabic title, id est:] Liber secundus De Canone Canonis a Filio Sinà. Latin-Arabic, annotated partial edition. Wroclaw 1609.
  • Vopiscus Fortunatus Plemp: [ Canon medicinae. ] Part 1, lions 1658. - new Latin translation.
German
  • Partial translation of Liber I in: Johannes Gottfried Mayer , Konrad Goehl : Herbal Book of Monastery Medicine. Reprint-Verlag, Leipzig 2003. ISBN 3-8262-1130-8 . Pp. 74-124
  • Translation of Liber II , part 1 in: Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and his presentation of the medicinal effects. With an introduction by Jorit Wintjes . Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2014. ISBN 978-3-86888-078-6 , pp. 29–86.
  • Translation of Liber V in: Joseph Sontheimer: Compound remedies of the Arabs: After the fifth book of the Canon by Ebn Sina. Herder, 1845.

literature

  • Donald Campbell: Arabian medicine and its influence on the Middle Ages. London 1926, reprinted Amsterdam 1974.
  • Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and his presentation of the medicinal effects. With an introduction by Jorit Wintjes . Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2014. ISBN 978-3-86888-078-6 .
  • Arnold Carl Klebs . Incunabula scientifica et medica. (Reprint of the 1938 edition) Olms, Hildesheim 2004, pp. 68–69.
  • Johannes Gottfried Mayer, Konrad Goehl: The basics of medicine Avicennas. In: Herbal Book of Monastery Medicine. Reprint-Verlag, Leipzig 2003. ISBN 3-8262-1130-8 . Pp. 42-73.
  • Heinrich Schipperges (†): Ibn Sīnā (= abū ʿAlī al-Ḥusain ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn Sīnā al-Qānūnī = Avicenna). In: Werner E. Gerabek , Bernhard D. Haage, Gundolf Keil , Wolfgang Wegner (eds.): Enzyklopädie Medizingeschichte. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 1334-1336.
  • Mazhar H. Shah: The general principles of Avicenna's Canon of medicine. Karachi 1966.
  • Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999. ISBN 3-406-41946-1 ; 2nd edition, ibid. 2006, passim, in particular pp. 114–116 and 125–127.
  • Manfred Ullmann : Medicine in Islam. In: Handbuch der Orientalistik, 1st section, supplementary volume IV, 1st section. Leiden 1970. pp. 152-156.

Web links

Commons : Canon of Medicine  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Julius Hirschberg , Julius Lippert: The ophthalmology of Ibn Sina. Leipzig 1902; Reprinted in: F. Sezgin (Ed.): Studies on Ibn Sīnā (d. 1037) and his medical works. 4 volumes, Frankfurt am Main 1996 (= Publications of the Institute for the History of Arabic-Islamic Science. Volume 10-13), Volume 2, pp. 161-352.
  2. ^ Translation of Liber II , Part 1 in: Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and his presentation of the medicinal effects. With an introduction by Jorit Wintjes . Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2014. ISBN 978-3-86888-078-6 , pp. 29–86, here: p. 30.
  3. ↑ Jorit Wintjes: Introduction. In: Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and its presentation of the medicinal effects. 2014, pp. 5–27, here: pp. 19 ff.
  4. ↑ according to al-Fārābī the result of the merging of theory ( naẓarīya ; Latin ars speculativa ) and practice ( ʿamalīya ; Latin ars activa ). See Heinrich Schipperges (†): Theorica medicina. In: Werner E. Gerabek u. a. (Ed.): Encyclopedia of medical history. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2005, ISBN 3-11-015714-4 , pp. 1386-1388, here: pp. 1386 f. ( On the methodological dispute about theory and practice ).
  5. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier : Avicenna. Beck, Munich 1999, ISBN 3-406-41946-1 , p. 114.
  6. ^ A b c Johannes Gottfried Mayer, Konrad Goehl: The basics of medicine Avicennas. In: Herbal Book of Monastery Medicine. Reprint-Verlag, Leipzig 2003, ISBN 3-8262-1130-8 , pp. 42-73
  7. ↑ Jorit Wintjes: Introduction. 2014, p. 19.
  8. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier: Avicenna. 1999, pp. 33, 35 and 114 f.
  9. ^ Translation: Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and its presentation of the medicinal effects. With an introduction by Jorit Wintjes . Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2014. ISBN 978-3-86888-078-6 , pp. 29–86.
  10. ↑ Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and his presentation of the medicinal effects. 2014, p. 30 f. (quoted).
  11. ↑ Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and his presentation of the medicinal effects. 2014, pp. 38–41.
  12. ↑ Jorit Wintjes: The "Canon of Medicine". In: Konrad Goehl: Avicenna and its presentation of the medicinal effects. With an introduction by Jorit Wintjes. Deutscher Wissenschafts-Verlag, Baden-Baden 2014. ISBN 978-3-86888-078-6 , pp. 19–21, here: p. 19.
  13. ↑ Mona Nasser, Aida Tibi, Emilie Savage-Smith. Ibn Sina's Canon of Medicine: 11th century rules for assessing the effects of drugs. In: Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2009, issue 2. pp. 78–80 ( doi: 10.1258 / jrsm.2008.08k040 )
  14. ↑ Sylvie Ayari-Lassueur. Les propriétés des remèdes simples selon Avicenne (980-1037): analyze de quelques passages du Canon. In: Gesnerus , 69/2, 2012, pp. 207–246, gesnerus.ch ( memento of the original from July 16, 2018 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF) @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.gesnerus.ch
  15. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier: Avicenna. 1999, p. 115.
  16. ↑ a b c Based on the table of contents of the Latin edition Basel 1556, which was published as a facsimile in Tehran in 1976
  17. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier: Avicenna. 1999, pp. 111-113 and 155.
  18. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier: Avicenna. 1999, p. 115.
  19. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier: Avicenna. 1999, p. 125 f.
  20. ^ Frank Thadeusz: Doctor omniscient . In: Spiegel Geschichte , No. 2, 2010. P. 74 f.
  21. ^ Avicennas Canon medicinae , Research Group Monastery Medicine
  22. ↑ Jorit Wintjes: Introduction. 2014, p. 23 f.
  23. ↑ See also SS Kottek: Un chef d'oeuvre d'illustration médicale: Le manuscrit hébraïque du Canon d'Avicenne (Ms. Bologne 2197). In: Medicina nei Secoli. Arte e Scienza. Volume 8, 1996, pp. 13-29; and G. Tamani (ed.): Il Canon medicinae di Avicenna nella tradizione ebraica. The miniature del manoscritto 2197 della Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna. Padua 1988.
  24. ↑ Ernest Wickersheimer (Ed.): Commentaires de la Faculté de Médecine de'l Université de Paris. Paris 1915.
  25. ↑ Jorit Wintjes: Introduction. 2014, p. 24 f.
  26. ^ Arnold Carl Klebs . Incunabula scientifica et medica. (Reprint of the 1938 edition) Olms, Hildesheim 2004, p. 68.
  27. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier: Avicenna. 1999, p. 152 f. and 155.
  28. ^ Edition Basel 1556. Digitized
  29. ↑ Jorit Wintjes: Introduction. 2014, pp. 24 and 26.
  30. ↑ Manfred Ullmann : Medicine in Islam. Leiden 1970, p. 154.
  31. ^ The influence of Avicenna on medical studies in the West . In: Encyclopædia Iranica
  32. ↑ Luisa Maria Arvide Cambra: The Editions and the translation of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine . In: Journal of Advances in Humanities . tape 4 , no. 1 , February 29, 2016, ISSN  2349-4379 , p. 423-430 , doi : 10.24297 / jah.v4i1.6129 . CC-BY 4.0 .
  33. ^ Gotthard Strohmaier: Avicenna. 1999, p. 156.