Islamic Contribution

OUCH! I have fallen down a hill! I think most people can relate to falling at some point in their life.Let’s just say when you fell, a piece of glass cut you deep in the leg and you were gushing blood. So you get driven to the hospital and they put you under surgery to get all the glass out.

When you wake up and look at the stitches, you ask the doctor “Do you just use thread to give stitches?”. Turns out, he used catguts. But do you know where using catguts comes from, besides the inside of a cat? Muslims invented the use of catgut and many other things such as antiseptic, hospitals, surgical instruments, surgical encyclopedias, medical treatments, and strangest of remedies. But there is obviously much more. Going back to the falling and open wound scenario, you probably used and antiseptic discovered by Muslims to prevent infection, without it, those stitches of yours could start oozing and swelling and start smelling like rotten flesh.

We have Al-Razi to thank for that, but he had many medical successes such as “He was the first to use alcohol as an antiseptic (2)” (Text 3 by Dr. Ibrahim B. Syed) It is a good thing that stitches do not get infected as much anymore because once it is infected you are at a higher risk of Staph Infection and Boils. Another useful contribution by the Muslims is a hospital. Muslims “Established the first real hospital’s” (Youtube-“Muslim Scientists Contribution in Medicine” Islamic Affairs Broadcast) and the hospitals were also used as medical school.

So whenever you feel sick and have gone to a hospital, if there was no hospital, you could be dead. Although stitches were important, so were surgical instruments, which many, once again,were invented by Muslims. In fact, they invented “200 surgical instruments, many of which are still used today” (Youtube-“Muslim Scientists Contribution in Medicine” Islamic Affairs Broadcast). Without a bone saw, who knows how people would get a hip replacement, and if there was no scalpel, they might as well use a steak knife to get to your kidney. But please tell me you have heard about the famous Al-Zahrawi, well, i did not know Al-Zahrawi could be a name, so don’t ask me how to pronounce that.

He wrote a 30 volume encyclopedia of “in-depth descriptions of surgeries” (NG-Science and Philosophy). With his medical inventions and books, lots and lots of books, he saved many lives with his medical advances. There were a lot more life threatening diseases a few 100 years ago. They are still here today but we have treatments for them, like smallpox and measles, you will never guess who founded treatment for those. Yep, still the muslims.

Al-Razi “differentiate between smallpox and measles” (Youtube-“Muslim Scientists Contribution in Medicine” ) and if he did not do that we would not know what to treat people with when these diseases come up. Therefore, a lot more people would be decaying in the ground right now if Al-Razi was not as smart. Finally, I am going to talk about Ibn Sina. “His recommendation of wine as the best dressing for wounds was very popular in medireview practice” (Muslim Surgeons-Dr. Ibrahim B.

Syed). Wine is used to treat wounds and acts as a disinfectant. But for disinfectant it would have to be strong enough.Even drinking wine can reduce wound infections. For example, wine that was 50% alcohol killed Typhoid bacteria in 30 seconds. All in all, the world would be a lot farther behind on medical terms if Muslims never made the medical contributions that they did.

So next time you get a treatment from the doctor, ask yourself, did a Muslim person with a really confusing name invent this?