Throughout Muslim world, the year 2013 was observed as 1000th year of
al-Zahrawi’s death. In India also a three-day International
Conference and exhibition on ‘Revisiting Abul Qasim Al-Zahrawi's Legacy in
Medicine and Surgery’ was organized on December 13-15, 2013 at India Islamic
Cultural Centre, New Delhi. It was jointly organized by The Institute of
Objective Studies, in collaboration with MESCO and Maulana Azad Education
Foundation, Ministry of Minority Affairs, Government of India. It was sponsored
by India Islamic Cultural Centre and others. The organizers also proposed the
establishment of an al-Zahrawi museum in India to display editions of most of
his works and replicas of his surgical tools, large facsimile editions of his
drawings and other memorabilia. These types of conferences need to be organized
regularly so the present day Muslim youth should become aware and get inspired
of their scientific legacy.
Abū Al-Qāsim was, born in 936 CE in the city El-Zahra,
six miles northwest of Qartaba in
Al-Andalus or Spain. Al Zahrawi was an Arab Muslim
physician and surgeon who was
a court physician to the Andalusian caliph Al-Hakam II. He was a
contemporary of Andalusian chemists such as Ibn
al-Wafid, Maslamah Ibn Ahmad al-Majriti. He devoted his entire life and
genius to the advancement of medicine as a whole and surgery in particular. Abū
al-Qāsim specialized in curing disease by cauterization. He invented
several devices used during surgery, for purposes such as inspection of
the interior of the urethra, applying and removing foreign bodies from
the throat, inspection of the ear, etc. He is also credited to be the
first to describe ectopic pregnancy in 963 CE, in those days a fatal
affliction. He was the first physician
to identify the hereditary nature of haemophilia. Al-Zahrawi was the first
to illustrate the various cannulae and the first to treat
a wart with an iron tube and caustic metal as a boring instrument. He
was also the first to draw hooks with a double tip for use in surgery. He
introduced over 200 surgical instruments. Abū al-Qāsim also invented
the forceps for extracting a dead fetus.
In pharmacy and pharmacology, Abū al-Qāsim al-Zahrawī pioneered
the preparation of medicines by sublimation and distillation.
Many consider al Zahrawi as father of modern surgery.
Al-Zehrawi made original and enduring
contributions to medicine, surgery, orthopaedics, gynaecology and orthopaedics,
pharmacology, dentistry and cosmetology. Highly sophisticated surgical
instruments of today are sometimes merely a new generation of the surgical
instruments’ prototypes of al-Zahrawi. Diagnostic, clinical and surgical
procedures established by al-Zahrawi are, even today, present in some measure
or form in medical and surgical practice. His greatest contribution to medicine
is the Kitab al-Tasrif a thirty-section
encyclopedia of medical practices. It was completed 13 years before his death
in 1013 CE. It covered a broad range of medical topics,
including dentistry and childbirth, which contained data that
had accumulated during a career that spanned almost 50 years of training,
teaching and practice. In it he also wrote of the importance of a
positive doctor-patient relationship. It was later translated into Latin by Gerard
of Cremona in the 12th century. A copy of Kitab al Tasrif is available in
Khuda Bakhsh Oriental library of Patna.
Al-Zahrawi’s whole life is the finest example of service to
humans and service to knowledge. Knowledge and skill are the foundations on
which civilisations are built. The contribution of al-Zahrawi is recognised
world-wide as immense. Throughout world, al-Zahrawi is regarded as another
Hippocrates who came a millennium and a half later. Many countries have issued
commemorative postage stamps in honour of his legacy.
