40 Facts About Ibn al-Nafis

1.

Ibn al-Nafis is known for being the first to describe the pulmonary circulation of the blood.

2.

The work of Ibn al-Nafis regarding the right sided circulation pre-dates the later work of William Harvey's De motu cordis.

3.

Ibn al-Nafis was appointed as the chief physician at al-Naseri Hospital founded by Sultan Saladin.

4.

Apart from medicine, Ibn al-Nafis studied jurisprudence, literature and theology.

5.

Ibn al-Nafis was an expert on the Shafi'i school of jurisprudence and an expert physician.

6.

The number of medical textbooks written by Ibn al-Nafis is estimated at more than 110 volumes.

7.

Ibn al-Nafis was born in 1213 to an Arab family probably at a village near Damascus named Karashia, after which his Nisba might be derived.

8.

Ibn al-Nafis was contemporary with the famous Damascene physician Ibn Abi Usaibia and they both were taught by the founder of a medical school in Damascus, Al-Dakhwar.

9.

Ibn al-Nafis was appointed as the chief physician at al-Naseri hospital which was founded by Saladin, where he taught and practiced medicine for several years.

10.

Ibn al-Nafis taught jurisprudence at al-Masruriyya Madrassa.

11.

Ibn al-Nafis's name is found among those of other scholars, which gives insight into how well he was regarded in the study and practice of religious law.

12.

Ibn al-Nafis lived most of his life in Egypt, and witnessed several pivotal events like the fall of Baghdad and the rise of Mamluks.

13.

Ibn al-Nafis even became the personal physician of the sultan Baibars and other prominent political leaders, thus showcasing himself as an authority among practitioners of medicine.

14.

Later in his life, when he was 74 years old, Ibn al-Nafis was appointed as the chief physician of the newly founded al-Mansori hospital where he worked for the rest of his life.

15.

Ibn al-Nafis died in Cairo after some days of sickness.

16.

However, Ibn al-Nafis managed to publish only 80 before his death, and the work was left incomplete.

17.

Ibn al-Nafis bequeathed his encyclopedia along with all of his library to the Mansoory hospital where he had worked before his death.

18.

Sharh Tashrih al-Qanun, published when Ibn al-Nafis was only 29 years old, still it is regarded by many as his most famous work.

19.

Ibn al-Nafis' commentary on Hippocrates' Endemics in Sharh Abidhimya li-Burqrat is an analysis of Hippocrates three constitutions.

20.

Ibn al-Nafis's commentaries include one on Hippocrates' book, several volumes on Avicenna's The Canon of Medicine, and a commentary on Hunayn Ibn Ishaq.

21.

The most commonly accepted theory of cardiac function prior to Ibn al-Nafis was that of Galen.

22.

The newly-discovered manuscript of Ibn al-Nafis was translated by Max Meyerhof.

23.

Ibn al-Nafis posited that the "pores" of the heart are closed, that there is no passage between the two chambers, and the substance of the heart is thick.

24.

Ibn al-Nafis believed that blood and air passes from the lung to the left ventricle and not in the opposite direction.

25.

Some points that conflict with Ibn al-Nafis' are that there are only two ventricles instead of three and that the ventricle gets its energy from the blood flowing in the vessels running in the coronary vessels, not from blood deposited in the right ventricle.

26.

Ibn al-Nafis postulated that nutrients for heart are extracted from the coronary arteries:.

27.

Ibn al-Nafis had an insight into what would become a larger theory of the capillary circulation.

28.

Ibn al-Nafis stated that "there must be small communications or pores between the pulmonary artery and vein," a prediction that preceded the discovery of the capillary system by more than 400 years.

29.

Ibn al-Nafis' theory was confined to blood transit in the lungs and did not extend to the entire body:.

30.

Ibn al-Nafis disagreed with Galen's theory that the heart's pulse is created by the arteries' tunics.

31.

Ibn al-Nafis correctly observed that the arteries contract when the heart expands and expand when the heart contracts.

32.

Ibn al-Nafis was one of the few physicians at the time, who supported the view that the brain, rather than the heart, was the organ responsible for thinking and sensation.

33.

Ibn al-Nafis discussed the difference between kidney and bladder infections, different types of inflammatory and noninflammatory renal swellings, the conservative management of renal stones and commonly used and well known lithontriptic medicaments.

34.

Ibn al-Nafis is credited with providing the earliest recorded reference for the concept of metabolism:.

35.

Ibn al-Nafis thus wrote the narrative of Theologus Autodidactus as a rebuttal of Abubacer's arguments in Philosophus Autodidactus.

36.

Ibn al-Nafis dealt with Islamic eschatology in some depth in his Theologus Autodidactus, where he rationalized the Islamic view of eschatology using reason and science to explain the events that would occur according to Islamic tradition.

37.

Ibn al-Nafis had been described as the greatest physician of his time, with some even referring to him as "the second Ibn Sina".

38.

Years before Ibn al-Nafis was born, Galenic physiology and anatomy dominated the Arabic medical tradition from the time of Hunayn ibn Ishaq.

39.

For science historians, Ibn al-Nafis is sometimes regarded as "the greatest physiologist of the Middle Ages".

40.

George Sarton, in his "Introduction to the History of Science", written about the time Ibn al-Nafis's theory had just been discovered, said:.