Ibn Nafis

Ibn Nafis (rear RTL ابنالنفيس), or Ibn Al-Nafis Damishqui (1210 - 1288), was a Arab Médecin .

Originating in Damas, it is the first to have described the process of the Blood circulation in the human body with the Cairo in 1242, and in particular of pulmonary circulation . This work remained largely been unaware of until one them redécouvre with Berlin in 1924; in fact, one in general allots the paternity of the description of the circulatory system to William Harvey.

Its writings

Bulkiest of its books is Al-Shamil fi Al-Tibb (Comments on the Anatomy of the Canon of medicine of Ibn Sina), which was to be an encyclopedia of 300 volumes, but which was not finished because of its death. Its manuscript is available to Damas.

He also wrote a book on the Ophtalmologie, Mujaz Al-Qanun (Shortened on the law). Another of its books, Kitab Al-Mukhtar fi Al-Aghdhiya was relating to the effects of the mode on health.

He also wrote a certain number of comments on the matters of the law and medicine. Its comments relate on books of Hippocrates, and to several volumes of Avicenne.

Discovered pulmonary circulation

In 1924 a Egyptian Physicist , the doctor Muhyo Al-Deen Altawi, who was interested by the history of Arab medicine, discovers a manuscript entitled Commentaires on the Anatomy of the Canon of Ibn Sina in the national bookstore Berlin oise of Prussia.

This manuscript is regarded as one of the best scientific books. Al-Nafis speaks in detail about the human anatomy, the Pathologie S and the Physiologie. It is the first book devoted to pulmonary circulation.

He explains in his book:

" When blood was refined in this cavity (the ventricle right of the heart), it is essential that it passes in the left cavity where are born the vital spirits. But there does not exist direct passage between these last. The thick septum of the heart was by no means perforated and did not comprise visible pores as some thought it, nor of invisible pores such as Galien imagined it. On the contrary the pores of the heart are closed there. This blood of the right cavity of the heart was to circulate, in the arterial vein (our pulmonary artery), towards the lungs. It was propagated then in the substance of this body where it mixed with the air. So that its finest part is purified and passes in the venous artery (our pulmonary veins) to arrive in the left cavity of the heart and forms the vital." spirit there;

He says elsewhere in his book:

" The heart has only two ventricles and there is absolutely no opening between the latter. In the same way, the dissection is opposed so that they claimed since the septum between these two cavities is much thicker than no one other. The interest of this blood (which is in the right cavity) is to join the lungs, to mix with the air which is there, then to walk on through the pulmonary veins to gain the left cavity of the cœur."

By describing the anatomy of the lungs it indicates:

" The lungs are made up various parts, one of them is the bronchi, the second corresponds to the branches of the pulmonary artery and the third with the branches of the pulmonary veins. All are connected by means of a loose parenchyma and poreux"

He adds:

" The lungs require a pulmonary artery because this one brings the blood to them which was thinned and heated in the heart so that what oozes through the pores of the branches of this vessel towards the air cells can mix with the air which is there and to combine with him, substance obtained being then able to become the spirit after this mixture gained the left cavity of the heart. The mixture is led towards the left cavity by the veins pulmonaires."

He also explains the role of the coronary arteries in the irrigation of the heart:

" Moreover, the postulate which would like that the blood of the right-sided serf to nourish the heart is absolutely not true, indeed the nutrition of the heart comes from blood circulating in the vessels which penetrate the body of the cœur."

See too

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