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Muslim Scientific Achievements: in History and Modern Times
| David W. Tschanz |
14/2/2002
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History of Islamic Pharmacy: Part 1 – The Ninth Century
Arabic
pharmacy (Saydanah)* as a profession and school of
thought separate from medicine was recognized by the beginning of the ninth
century CE (third century AH). Baghdad, the center of learning at the time, saw
a rapid expansion of the number of privately owned pharmacy shops, a trend that
quickly spread to the suburbs and other Muslim cities.
-
The
Traditional Style Pharmacy and the “Modern” Pharmacy:
The
traditional style of pharmacy was modeled after the pharmacies of the Arab World
(still popular in Egypt). The style of the modern pharmacy has not changed
much from back then. However, the traditional pharmacies were responsible for
mixing their own pharmaceuticals. Nowadays, the mixing is done in factories and
more chemicals are used rather than natural herbs and ingredients.
The
pharmacists who managed these new shops 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. A
government appointed official, al-Muhtasib, and his aides periodically inspected
the pharmacists and their shops. These state inspectors were responsible for
assuring the accuracy of the weights and measures as well as the purity of the
materials used to make the drugs. This served as a means of assuring quality and
safeguarding 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 intellectual
curiosity.
The
ninth century marked the beginning of the Golden Age of Islamic learning, and
just as Muslim scholars made significant gains in the physical sciences, so too
did they learn, master and expand the arts of medicine and the science of
pharmacy.
The prolific intellectual ferment that fired the Baghdad schools, support at the
highest levels of government, and a craving for intellectual pursuits paved the
way for a still greater harvest in the succeeding four centuries. Manuals on
materia medica and references for instructing the pharmacist concerning the work
and management of his shop began circulating in increasing numbers.
One
of the contributors to Arabic pharmacy in the third/ninth century was the
Nestorian physician, Yuhanna bin Masawayh (known in the West as Mesue,
c.777-857). A second-generation pharmacist, Ibn Masawayh penned an early
treatise on therapeutic plants, listing about thirty aromatics - including their
physical properties, methods of detecting adulteration, and their
pharmacological effects. On ambergris, for example, he explains that there are
many types, the best among them the blue or gray (gray-amber) and that fatty
as-salahiti is used with the choicest of aromated mixtures (ghaliyyahs,
perfumes, or medical cosmetics). Ibn Masawayh also recommended saffron for liver
and stomach ailments. He noted that sandalwood, whether yellow (the best),
white, or red is brought from India where it is used in the manufacture of
perfumes.
In his medical work, Ibn Masawayh recommended the use of well-known medicinal
plants to build up a natural resistance to diseases. He urged physicians to
prescribe one remedy for each disease, using empirical and analogous reasoning.
He finally stated that the physician who could cure by using only diet - without
drugs - was to be considered the most successful and skilled.
Another
of Ibn Masawayh's books, Al-Mushajjar al-Kabir, is, to some extent, a tabulated
medical encyclopedia on diseases and their treatment via drugs and diet. Other
works are comprised of small treatises - such as one on barley water, explaining
how to prepare it and its therapeutic uses.
A
countryman and younger colleague of Ibn Masawayh was Abu Hasan 'Ali b. Sahl
Rabban at- Tabari 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 government officer
and a physician. At-Tabari wrote several medical books, the most famous of which
is his Paradise of Wisdom, completed in 850. In addition to discussions on
diseases and their remedies, the book contains discussions on the nature of man,
cosmology, embryology, temperaments, psychotherapy, hygiene, diet, medical
anecdotes, and abstracts and quotations from Indian source material. The work
also includes several chapters on materia medica, cereals, diets, utilities and
therapeutic uses of animal and bird organs, as well as drugs and methods of
their preparation.
At-Tabari
urged that the therapeutic value of each drug be reconciled with the particular
disease, urging physicians not to fall prey to the routine remedy. He identified
the best source for several components, stating that the finest 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, e.g.:
…
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).
For
storage purposes he recommended glass or ceramic vessels for liquid (wet) drugs;
special small jars for eye liquid salves; and 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 was by al-Aqrabadhin tly Sabur
bin Sahl (d. 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 to the types of preparations into which they fit, -
whether tablets, powders, ointments, electuaries or syrups. Each class of
pharmaceutical preparation is presented along with a variety of recipes made in
a specific form; they vary, however, in the ingredients used, their recommended
applications, and therapeutic effects.
Sabur's
formulary-type compendium is unique in its organization and purposely written as
a guidebook for pharmacists, whether for use in their own private drugstores or
in hospital pharmacies. As such, it is the first true medical formulary.
A
few books related to pharmacy were written by the famous scholar, Ya'qub bin
Ishaq al-Kindi (d. 874). His contributions to philosophy, mathematics and
astrology, however, were greater than those on medicine and therapy.
Nevertheless, it is to his credit that he was an outspoken critic of alchemists
and attacked their procedures and claims as deceptive under the circumstances.
Hunayn's
book of the Ten Treatises on the Eye was completed in 245/860. After finishing
the first nine treatises, the author felt the need for a closing treatise to be
devoted to compounded drugs for eye medication.
In
addition, as one example of the uses and therapeutic values of using compounded
drugs, Hunayn gave the example of theriac, the universal antidote against
poisoning. Hunayn, whose translations were literally worth their weight in gold,
translated into Arabic the major part of Dioscorides' Materia Medica, undertaken
by his associate Istifan bin Basil (in the mid ninth century). As a result,
several books of materia medica were written in Arabic.
*
In Islam, sandalwood first appears in pharmaceutical preparations in the early
eighth century, or perhaps earlier. It soon became associated with the
profession: and pharmacists were called as-saydanani or as-saydalani
(he who sells or deals with sandalwood), and the word savdanah referred
to a pharmacy.
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