He is considered to be the most famous surgeon in Islamic medicine. One of the great figures of Muslim Spain, Islam’s greatest medieval surgeon. He revolutionized how the surgery was performed by inventing new methods and tools to help heal patients. His thirty-volume “Encyclopedia of Medicine” was used as a standard text for Medicine throughout Europe for centuries. The impact he had on how Medicine was practiced was truly revolutionary.
Background
Al-Zahrawi lived during most powerful period of the Umayyad Caliphate of Cordoba. He was born in 936 and died in 1013, and served the Umayyad Caliph al-Hakam II and the military ruler, al-Mansur. Throughout his life, al-Zahrawi was a court physician, having been patronized by the rulers of al-Andalus and recognized for his medical genius. He served in such a capacity as a doctor for over 50 years. Unlike many doctors and hospitals in the “modern” world today, al-Zahrawi insisted on seeing patients regardless of their financial status. By seeing a wide variety of patients every day and recording his treatment of them, he left behind a very valuable text of medical knowledge that he called al-Tasrif.
Al-Zahrawi takes a holistic approach to medicine. Not only does he discussed how to treat diseases, but he also described how to prevent them. He dedicates parts of his books to discussing what foods should be avoided, how to maintain a healthy diet, and how to use food as part of a treatment plan. He particularly notes the effects of alcohol on the body.
Surgery
His most influential volume of al-Tasrif is the 30th, the one dedicated to surgery. In it, he explains in detail how to perform certain surgeries to cure certain ailments. Al-Zahrawi pioneered many of the procedures and materials still used in operating rooms today. He was the first one to use cat-gut as the thread for internal stitches. It is the only material that can be used for stitches and still be absorbed by the body, preventing the need for a second surgery to remove internal stitches.
He invented many tools necessary for modern surgery. He was the first to use forceps in childbirth, greatly decreasing the mortality rate of babies and mothers. He performed tonsillectomies with the same tongue depressors, hooks, and scissors used today. He used concealed knives to cut into patients without making them apprehensive.
He used both local and oral anesthesia in order to reduce the pain patients experienced during surgery. He performed mastectomies removing a woman’s breast if she had breast cancer, a procedure was still done today. He described how to set bone fractures, amputate limbs, and even how to crush bladder stones. To describe all his “firsts” in medicine would take a book of its own. He described Hemophilia for the first time in history. His precedent was a prime example for an effective bedside manner that all doctors should exhibit.
Legacy
Al-Tasrif made its way from al-Andalus throughout the Muslim and Christian worlds. Over the course of centuries, it was translated into Latin and other European languages. “Walcher position” of childbirth and the “Kocher method” for fixing dislocated shoulders were invented by al-Zahrawi but credited to later European physicians. Regardless of credit, al-Zahrawi’s contributions to medicine and particularly surgery were revolutionary for his time. His abilities and his consistent recording of procedures helped advance medicine for centuries, and we are still in debt to his genius.
