Abu Bakr Mohammad Ibn Zakariya Al-Razi , known also like Al-Razi , or Ar-Razi , or Ibn Zakaria (Zakariya) or (in Latin) like Stale Rhazes and , (865 - 925) was a multi-field scientist Iranian which enormously contributed in the fields of the Médecine, the Alchimie and the Philosophie. Alchemist become doctor, it would have isolated the sulphuric Acid and the ethanol of which it initiated the medical use. Being the medical practice, it vigorously defended the scientific step in the diagnosis and the Thérapeutique and largely influenced the design of the hospital organization in bond with the training of the future doctors. Rationalist Empiriste and , it was the object of many criticism for its opposition to the Aristotélisme and its Libre-pensée with respect to the Religion.

Nowadays its name is commemorated with the Razi institute close to Teheran and its birthday is celebrated all the August 27th in Iran at the time of the day of pharmacy .

The man

Razi was born in the town of Ray (in Persian language Razi means “town of Ray”), city located at the south of Teheran, Iran, in the province of the Khorassan and carried out most of its research in this one. It should be noted that Avicenne also lived a moment in this city.

He would have initially been a musician, probably player of lute of a great virtuosity before turning to the Alchimie, the Philosophie, the Mathématiques and the Astronomie. Contrary to a spread idea, it is not the first to say that the world is round because Ératosthène, to third century BC, had calculated with a rather good precision the Earth's circumference and later, the Indian mathematician Aryabhata old the will make in the same way at the 6th century. It would seem that it was also interested in the Orfèvrerie.

According to some of its biographers, Razi would have suffered from a disease of the eyes caused by the emanations resulting from its experiments of alchemy which would have made him given up this field to be interested in the Médecine but Razi would have said, itself, which its sight had been affected by the prolonged readings. Towards the thirty years age, it thus begins a formation from doctor with Ray. Well-read man, it is Persan but reads and written in Arabic, it studies the texts of the Former Greeks (Hippocrates, Galien), Hindou S, possibly translated into Arab Syriaque then in . The writings of Ali ibn Rabban Al-Tabari (death towards 870) will have in particular a great influence on him. He continues his formation while travelling to Syria, to Egypt, to Spain supplementing his book learning of clinical and experimental practice.

Of return in the East, it is initially named doctor of the court of the prince Samanide Abu Salih Al-Mansur, reigning on the kingdom of the Khorassan in the north of the Perse. Its notoriety growing, it is in charge of the direction of the hospital of Ray then Maristan (central hospital) Muqtadari of Baghdad under the reign of the Caliph Abbasside Al-Muktafi. The legend tells that to choose the site of the buildings to be built, it would have made suspend pieces of meat in various places of the city and would have chosen the site as being that where the meat broke up the least quickly.

To died of sovereign Al-Muktafi, into 907, Razi turns over to Ray. Many students follow there and it continues its medical teaching there. Become blind at the end of its life, he dies in Ray on October 27th, 925 (or 932 following sources), in year 313 of the Moslem Calendrier.

The doctor, the teacher and the scientist

As a chief consultant of the hospital progressist and humanistic, Razi introduced radically new practices into the care of the patients and the training of the doctors. It indeed distinguished three aspects from medicine: the Public health, the Preventive medicine and the treatment of the specific diseases. Accordingly, it organized external consultations, promoted the home care and opened the hospital and the access to the care and needy and not only to the rich person. Insisting on the role of the preventive medicine, it was made the author of the very first medical treaty to the use of the not-doctors based on seven principles intended to ensure the safeguarding of health:

• moderation and balance when the body is moving and when it is at rest.
• moderation while eating and while drinking.
• elimination of the superabundances.
• improvement and regulation of the habitats.
• to avoid harmful excesses before they become unverifiable.
• to maintain a harmony enters the ambitions and the resolutions.
• to force itself to acquire good practices in particular concerning the practice of the physical exercise.

Teacher admired and fine pedagog, it initiated the practice of the visits to the bedside of the patients with his students and subjected the questions to them, initially with the more beginners then most tested at before giving its own answer. He insisted on the need for an continuing education during the life of the doctors and encouraged them to take notes on their observations and to discuss it between them.

Razi is recognized for its talents of observations combined with a great scientific rigor. He played a fundamental role in the development of the clinical method, attaching a great importance to the clinical signs but also to the symptomatology which were to constitute the base of a driving reasoning to the diagnosis then with the Thérapeutique. He insisted on the importance to combine the theoretical knowledge with the clinical practice. By doing this, it was made a severe but admiring critic work of Galien which it judged to lack empirical observations. That was worth to him to be even attacked to him. Practical not very current at the time, Razi scrupulously quoted its scientific sources which they were Greek or Arab.

Contrary to the use of then, it associated with the step of care the patient himself (of which it estimated that the psychological state conditioned the success of the treatment) but also entourage of the patient: “It is necessary that the patients and its close relations are with the doctor and not against him, that they do not hide to him anything the states of the patient and his behavior. ” In this same comprehensive approach of the disease, he also insisted on the role of the Diététique in the care and the prevention of the diseases.

Using his knowledge in chemistry for his medical activity, one can rightly regard it as a founding father of therapeutic the iatrochimic (the use of chemical substance to look after diseases). It worked for the constitution of the Pharmacologie like disciplines medical with whole share and the chapter which is devoted in its treaty Kitab Al-Hawi will remain a reference until the 17th century in Europe. Nevertheless, he very early alerted his contemporaries on the ill-considered use of drugs and the difficulties resulting from the Polypharmacie (the use of several drugs at the same time).

Ibn Al-Nadim identifies five fields in which Razi was distinguished:

1. Razi was recognized like the best doctor of its time to have fully included/understood and have applied medical knowledge Greek;
2. it travelled in many territories. Its repeated visits with Baghdad and its services with many princes and sovereigns are known several sources;
3. it was teaching in Médecine which attracted many students, that those are initial or not.
4. it was recognized like sympathizing, nice, right, and was devoted to the service of its patients who they are rich or poor.
5. he was a reader and a prolific writer.

Retrospectively, one can add to this list his important role in the development of a scientific medicine based on the facts and a very modern vision of hospital medicine associating clinical scientist, university formation and preoccupation with a public health.

Work scientific and medical

Razi practiced many medical specialities: surgery, gynecology, obstetrics, ophthalmology…

Razi wrote 184 pounds and articles in several scientific disciplines, including 61 concerning medicine, all in Arab language. Its principal works are: ; In medicine:

• Kitab Al-Hawi fi Al-Tibb medical Sum of 22 volumes partly posthumous which shows knowledge of older authors in the form of long extracts with the precise references and of the comments, lesson and observations of Razi. Translated into Latin at the 13th century, under the title Liber Continens , he will exert a deep influence on Western medicine, thus at the sides of nine other works, he will constitute the funds of the library of the Medical college of Paris in 1395.
• Kitab Al-Mansuri fi Al-Tibb (Book of medicine for Mansur) more general medical Treaty dedicated to the sovereign Samanide of Ray, Abu Salih Al-Mansur.
• Kitab fi Al-jadari wa-Al-hasbah (variola and measles)
• Kitab ila man the yahduruhu Al-tabib (Book for which does not have access to a doctor)
• Shukuk 'went alinusor (Doubts about Galien) critical Test on the theory of Galien and the way of which its successors avuglément make use of it
• Al-Teb Al Molooki (royal Medicine)
• Al-Murshid aw Al-Fusul (Aphorisms) Guide of the wandering doctor

; In chemistry:

• At-Tadbîr
• Sirr Al-Asraar

Psychiatry and psychology

Razi is the author of one of the very first treaties of psychology and psychiatry. The hospital which it directed to Baghdad was the first to have a service for the mentally ills.

Neurology

Razi was also interested in the Neurologie: it described the driving role and sensitive nerves by identifying 7 of the cranial Nerfs and 31 of the spinaux Nerfs by a number referring to their anatomical position since the Optical nerve until the Nerf hypoglosse. On the functional level, it establishes the bond certain clinical signs and the anatomical localization of a lesion.

Small pox against measles

As doctor as a chief at the hospital of Baghdad, Razi provided the first description known of the Petite pox:

“Smallpox appears when the blood boils and infected so that extra vapors may Be driven out to turn childhood blood, which looks like wet extracts, into youth blood, which looks like scraper wine. Essentially, smallpox is like the bubbles found in wine At this time… this disease might also present Be apart from such times. The best thing to C At such times is to avoid it, that is, when the disease is seen to become epidemic. ”

This is confirmed by the Encyclopædia Britannica (1911), which establishes: “The sources worthiest of confidence which give a report on the early existence of this disease are to be put at the account of Rhazes IXe, by which the symptoms are clearly described, its pathology explained by a theory humorale or of Fermentation, and regulations given for its treatment. ”

Written by Razi, Al-Judari wa Al-Hasbah was the first book on this disease, and was translated in addition to one dozen languages. Its lack of Dogmatism and its hippocratic confidence on the clinical observations shows the medical methods of Razi:

“the eruption of the small pox is preceded by a continuous fever, back pain, itchings in the nose and frights in the sleep. They are the most particular symptoms of its arrival, especially a back pain with fever, with also of the tinglings which the patients feel on their body, a plenitude of the face which with time to and from; an ignited color, and an intense redness in the two cheeks, a redness in the two eyes, a heaviness of the whole body, large a faintness, the symptoms off which are stretching and yawning , a pain in the throat and the chest, with a light difficulty in breathing and of cough, a dryness of the breath, a thick saliva and enrouement of the voice, pains and a heaviness of the head, concern, nausea and anxiety (with this difference that concern, nausea and the anxiety are more frequent with measles than with the small pox, with another side, the pain in the back which is more particular with the small pox than with measles) heat in the whole body, an ignited colonist, and a brilliant redness, especially an intense redness of the gums. ”

Razi is also the first to differentiate the small pox from the Rougeole.

Allergies and fever

Razi discovered the allergic Asthme, and would have been the first nobody to have written a treaty on the allergy and the Immunologie. In the treaty Sense off Smelling he explains the appearance of Rhinite S when one feels a pink in spring, draft of the seasonal rhinitides, which are identical to allergic asthma or the Hay cold. Razi would have been the first to understand that the fever was a natural mechanism of defense of the human body.

Pharmacy

Rhazes contributed to the early practice of the Pharmacie thanks to texts, but also by other manners. One can quote the introduction of ointments to the mercury, the development of tools like the mortar, spatulas and flasks which will be of use in pharmacies until the beginning of the XXe.

Various pathologies

It described many pathologies like the drop, renal and vesical calculations , the Variole, the Rougeole, the Hay cold. It moreover classified the diseases in three categories: those which are Curable S; those which can be Curable S; and those which are Incurable S.

Critical of its step

However, the step of Razi does not have of a systematic size yet and its successors, Ali ibn Al `Abbas Al-Majusi, the first will reproach its writings the lack of order and synthesis. Indeed by its attachment with empirical and its mistrust with respect to the theoretical one, Razi do not seek to organize the diseases as big families of symptoms.

Ethics of medicine

At the professional level, Razi introduced many useful and progressive ideas medical and psychological. It also attacked the Charlatan S and false doctors who traversed the cities and the campaigns to sell their alleged drugs. At the same time, he affirmed that the doctors, in spite of their knowledge, did not have the answers to all the medical problems and could not cure all the diseases. Nevertheless, to be more effective in their care, Razi exhorted the experts to keep up to date knowledge by studying medical books continuously and to make known all new information.

On the scientific research and private clinic

In its work of criticism in connection with Galien, Razi proposes four reasons making it possible to explain why the great men can make errors by:

1. negligence, being too sure themselves
2. lightness of spirit or indifference
3. temptation to want to confirm its own ideas or impetuosity due to the fact of being convinced to be right
4. the crystallization of the old knowledge and the refusal to accept the idea that new data or new ideas can make so that the knowledge of today exceeds finally that of the

former generations

Sources

• Razi site.htm Al Razi, biography on cardiology-French-speaking person
• Rhazès
• Medical Islamic Manuscripts and Al-Razi, the Clinician of the National Library off Medicine American
• Arabic Alchemy During the Fourth/Tenth Century
• Al-razi, Encyclopedia off Islam
• Ar-razi by Dr. A. Zahoor

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