Medical Achievements

​

The achievements of physicians during the Golden Age really were the beginnings of modern medicine as we know it. From the Ancient Greeks greats (like Galen and Hippocrates), Arab scholars borrowed the idea of the four humours which taught that the body is made up of four basic liquids (blood, phelgm, black bile and yellow bile) that causes sickness when any of them are out of balance. Using logic and experimentation, Arab doctors at first built on the theories of the humours but eventually began to call into question whether this theory could explain the cause of sickness.

​

Universities throughout the empire employed scholars and translators to copy and perfect the works of early Chinese, Greek, and Indian medical knowledge.

Every major Muslim city during the medieval ages had a hospital that treated people regardless of their ability to pay. These hospitals sported some pretty impressive innovations of the time such as separate wards for diseases, surgery, and other ailments. Hospitals had their own gardens and fountains to allow patients to recuperate in peace. Medieval Arab doctors had to pass difficult tests to become certified to practice medicine. Anyone who failed was banned from practicing in any part of the empire. Medieval doctors were able to remove cataracts from the eyes. Through observation it was understood that dirty conditions leads to infection and so instruments and wounds were sterilized.