jan 1, 980 - Avicenna

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Avicenna (Ibn Sina) was a Persian physician-philosopher born in the 9th century. He was the author of two significant works: The Book of Healing and The Canon of Medicine. Avicenna’s Canon was a synthesis of classic (i.e. that of Galen and Hippocrates) and contemporary Arab/Islamic medicine. An encyclopedia of sorts, it served as the cornerstone of European medical school curriculum during the Scholastic era.
Avicenna, and scholasticism, represent a simultaneous connection to and break from classical medicine. The Canon preserved Galenic texts but not Galenic methods. Medicine was less about practice and more about theory; the Galenic emphasis on dissection and knowing-through-seeing was lost in most early-modern medical schools. Avicenna, likewise, was firstly a philosopher and secondly a physician. He did not so much provide a doctrine of healing as he provided an overview of the history of medicine.

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