Islamic History Facts #Islam Scholars#Medical Field

• Hundreds of years before Darwin, in the 800s the Iraqi zoologist al-Jahiz pioneered the idea of natural selection as an explanation for how animals adapted traits that suited their environments.This page is from al-Jahiz's "Book of Animals".

• "Man breathes air which may carry various kinds of infections...so man's experiments and investigations have led him to build up the sciences for medical and veterinary services." - al-Biruni (973-1050), who lived in Central Asia and India. In Europe, they did not "discover" that diseases were spread by pathogens until the 1800s, whereas it was common knowledge in the Muslim world.
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• In the 13th century, Ibn al-Nafis discovered the process of pulmonary circulation of blood through the lungs. Before him, people believed blood seeped from one side of the heart to the other through small holes in the septum. 
• In the 10th century, al-Zahrawi was the first to use catgut to close internal stitches in surgery. The same material and procedure is used today.
• In the 900s, al-Zahrawi revolutionized surgery and took it from a barbaric guessing game to a real science. Many of the ideas and methods he invented are still in use today.
• Long before modern mental health, al-Razi specialized in how to treat and care for those who have mental illnesses in the 900s.