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History of Medicine

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Decorative calligraphic page header featuring orange Arabic script for Islamic Culture and Medicine

Islamic Culture and the Medical Arts


Visual Catalog of the Illustrations (Part 1/9)

Arabic script in black ink that states: Medicine is a science from which one learns the states of the human body with respect to what is healthy and what is not, in order to preserve good health when it exists and restore it when it is lacking

Medicine is a science from which one learns the states of the human body with respect to what is healthy and what is not, in order to preserve good health when it exists and restore it when it is lacking.

Ibn Sina, the opening to the Qanun fi al-tibb

[Corresponding Text]


Arabic script in black ink that states: The physician, with his medical art and his drugs, Cannot avert a summons that has come, What ails the physician that he dies of the disease, That he would have cured in time gone by? There died alike he who administered the drug and he who took it, And he who imported and sold the drug, and he who bought it.

The physician, with his medical art and his drugs,
Cannot avert a summons that has come,
What ails the physician that he dies of the disease,
That he would have cured in time gone by?
There died alike he who administered the drug and he who took it,
And he who imported and sold the drug, and he who bought it.

Verses upon the death in Baghdad of the physician Yuhanna ibn Masawayh in 857 (243 H).

[Corresponding Text]


Calligraphic page header with an orange border and cream background. In red in written in Arabic script is written 'Islamic Culture and Medicine.'

Calligraphic page header; Arabic script for "Islamic Culture and Medicine."
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TIFF version: [1127x355 8-bit color TIFF, 1200460 bytes]


The orange and cream poster for the Islamic Culture and the Medical Arts an exhibit at the National Library of Medicine 12 September - 31 December, 1994.

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TIFF version: [678x1024 8-bit color TIFF, 2083020 bytes]

[Corresponding Text]


The words Hunayn ibn Ishaq with the proper diacritics

When set as text, this name appears as Hunayn ibn Ishaq due to the lack of appropriate diacritical support in World Wide Web clients at the time this exhibit was created.

[Corresponding Text]



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Last Reviewed: December 15, 2011