From a simple cold to a serious disease – people have always lived with the awareness of the risk to catch a virus from one another. Fortunately, pandemics that claimed lives of millions of people are a rare phenomenon. But the bubonic plague of the XIV century and Spanish flu in 1918 added the sad pages to the history.
In the heyday of the Muslim civilization, people were confronted with plague and infectious diseases, such as leprosy. And how did doctors manage to cope with such disasters? Perhaps, there are some things that we, modern-day inhabitants of the Earth, should learn?
Preventive measures
A key medical principle from the early days of the Muslim civilization was preventive medicine, a reasonable guide for people of all ages to maintain their health.
Doctors highlighted in their medical works the importance of sport, personal hygiene, healthy eating and drinking habits, as well as of good sleep. They encouraged positive management of anxiety and anger, believing that body health is closely connected with the health of soul.
Examples of these doctors include Al-Razi in his book “Kitab Manafi al-Aghdhiya Wa Dafu Madhariha” and the sections of Ibn Sina’s “Canon of Medicine”.
Measures to prevent infections
Distancing
“Run away from a person with leprosy as you would run from a lion”, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, a theologian and doctor of the XIV century warned, referring to Prophet Muhammad’s statement. In cases of infectious diseases, such as leprosy, doctors knew that the only way to avoid transmission of the infection was to stay away from a sick person.
In his book “Al-Tibb Al-Nabawi” (“Medicine of the Prophet”) Ibn Qayyim determined that the disease was transmitted through the contact with a sick person or through breathing.
Quarantine
Walid ibn Abd al-Malik, the Umayyad Caliph, built the first bimaristan (hospital) in 707 in Damascus. In that hospital lepers were taken care of. They were placed in separate rooms and regularly supplied with medicine in order to avoid infecting other patients.
Travel restrictions
The guideline for epidemics was not to enter or leave the land affected by the disease. Abu Jaafar Amad ibn Hali ibn Hatima al-Ansari, an Andalusian doctor and scientist of the XIV century, followed that that guideline properly by staying in the city of Almeria after being infected by the bubonic plague. However, he made the most of his isolation by exploring the nature of the disease and its spread, as well as by looking after the sick. His conclusions are written in his book “Tahsil Gharad Al-Qasid fi Tafil Al-Marad Alwafid”.
One of Ibn Hatima’s discoveries was that diet and body’s strength of resistance (that is person’s immunity) played an important role in how strong the impact would be and how quickly the patient would react to treatment.
Instead of the afterword
As the world struggles with the pandemic again, there is a noticeable resonance, an echo with the past. Doctors in the Muslim world sought the best care and advice they could provide during epidemics and outbreaks of infectious diseases, and today the recommendations made by governments and practitioners around the world are remarkably similar.
"Medicine is the science from which a person learns the state of the human body in order to maintain good health when there is some and to restore it when there is not any".
Ilmira Gafiyatullina
Photo: Darko Stojanovic / Pixabay