Canon of Medicine
Ibn Sina's medical encyclopedia that systematized all known medical knowledge and remained authoritative for six centuries.
Who or what
Written by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) around 1025 CE, the Canon (Al-Qanun fi al-Tibb) spans five books and over a million words.
It synthesized Greek (Hippocrates, Galen), Persian, Indian, and Arabic medical knowledge into a unified system.
Why it mattered
The Canon treated medicine as a rational science based on observation and logic, not superstition.
It organized medical knowledge and observations in a medieval framework; its methods should not be equated with modern randomized clinical trials.
Key works and moments
Book I covers general principles: anatomy, physiology, pathology, diagnosis, and treatment.
Book II describes 760 simple drugs; Book III covers diseases by organ; Book IV covers systemic diseases; Book V covers compound remedies.
Further detail
The humoral theory organized health as balance of four humors (blood, phlegm, yellow bile, black bile) corresponding to four qualities (hot, cold, wet, dry).
Pulse diagnosis classified pulses by rate, rhythm, amplitude, and regularity — a sophisticated diagnostic tool.
Legacy
Translated to Latin by Gerard of Cremona in the 12th century, it became the standard medical textbook at Montpellier, Leuven, and other European universities.
Its emphasis on systematic observation and classification influenced the development of modern clinical medicine.
More in Islamic Golden Age
Assembled from the ReLU.chat curated knowledge base. These explanations are concise on purpose; check the sources for anything important.