Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Islamic medicine: Giving credit where none is due
The Times of London explains why al Qaeda has made the recruitment of doctors something of an objective. The article is interesting, but includes the usual tripe in no small measure:
The involvement of at least six doctors and medical students in the London and Glasgow bomb plots has come as a double shock to most Muslims. Not only does it besmirch their religion by associating it with terrorism, but it also insults the pride that Muslims take in the achievements of their golden age, especially in the fields of medicine, surgery and pharmacology. Medicine owes more to Islam than to any other religion or philosophy. It was the great Muslim physicians of Spain and the Middle East who laid the foundations for today’s science; it was the writings and medical observations of scholars such as Ibn Rushd (Averroes, as he was known in Europe) and Ibn Sina (Avicenna) that led directly to the medical advances of the past nine centuries.
Ah, yes, the famous Averroes. Averroes was a great Muslim scholar who struggled mightily to reconcile Islam with Aristotelianism. What happened to Averroes? Nine hundred years ago, Muslim fundamentalists rejected his ideas and threw him in prison. Oriana Fallaci told his story well, if pointedly:
Islam has always persecuted and silenced its intelligent men. I remind you of Averroes who for his distinction between Faith and Reason was accused of heterodoxy by the caliphs and forced to flee. Then, imprisoned like a criminal. Then, confined to his home and humiliated to such a degree that when rehabilitated he no longer had any desire to live and died within a few months. Not without good reason, in his famous lecture held in 1883 at the Sorbonne, Ernest Renan said that attributed the merits of Averroes to Islam would be like attributing the merits of Galileo to the Inquisition.
The achievements of Averroes were not because of Islam, they were in spite of Islam and ultimately in defiance of Islam. Indeed, has not the Times essentially mocked Muslims -- or at best condescended to them -- by suggesting that they should take pride in the achievements of a person that they famously persecuted 900 years ago? If you doubt me, imagine how Roman Catholics would react if a major newspaper declared that they take great pride in their church's "achievements" in astrophysics because Galileo's discoveries "led directly" to the scientific advances of the last 400 years? We Protestants would be busting a gut at the silliness of the idea, and any Catholic prelate who gave it a moment's thought would decide that the writer was either mocking the Roman church or an unreconstructed ignoramous.
In any case, the claim that "[m]edicine owes more to Islam than to any other religion" is sheer idiocy. The contributions of religion to science, including medical science, are measured by the extent to which religious authorities allow scientific research and teaching to proceed without molestation. Looked at this way, Islam has been a disaster. It never learned to reconcile faith and reason, and squandered its huge technological lead over then ignorant and backward Christians. Or maybe the Times is suggesting that scholars who happen to be Muslim have made great contributions. Sure, Averroes and others were born Muslim, but if we compare their discoveries to those of physicians who were born Christian or Jewish there is, well, no comparison.
The interesting question is, why does the Times dump such drivel in the middle of a perfectly good article about al Qaeda's apparently successful campaign to radicalize doctors?
31 Comments:
By 
D.E. Cloutier, at
Wed Jul 04, 12:23:00 AM:
Quit expecting journalists to think. Most don't.
Quit expecting journalists to do research. Most don't have time.
Journalists collect and rewrite quotes. Their newspapers are little more than newsletters for NGOs, activists, and politicians.
Journalists will always write the easiest story.
Here are the top two stories at the moment:
1. Civilians killed in U.S. military action (insert number and location here).
2. Global warming is destroying the planet (insert example here).
How many times do you see variations of those two stories in a month?
By 
, at
Wed Jul 04, 12:26:00 AM:
By Pax Federatica, at
Wed Jul 04, 12:47:00 AM:
The interesting question is, why does the Times dump such drivel in the middle of a perfectly good article about al Qaeda's apparently successful campaign to radicalize doctors?
To remain in the good graces of - and therefore with continued unfettered journalistic access to - the multiculturalist British government, perhaps?
By Purple Avenger, at
Wed Jul 04, 01:29:00 AM:
why does the Times dump such drivel in the middle of a perfectly good article
So the managing editors don't wind up in the street in a pool of blood tomorrow with a manifesto spiked to their chests.
By , at
Wed Jul 04, 08:32:00 AM:
Related question: is the problem, at least in part (i.e., in addition to personal idealogy), the fact that many (most?) journalists major in journalism? As opposed to, say, history, or science, or political science, or whatever it is that they want to report on when they "grow up?" I am not a history expert, so it is hard for me to "call out" the BS that gets embedeed in news articles. But am I a science major turned lawyer (I know, big mistake!) and so I routinely dissect science and medical reporting, and find it often falls short of the mark and/or is full of editorializing rather than facts.
Whatever the root cause, it is a shame that we cannot rely at least in part on MSM to give us objective factual reporting, because all too many of our citizens rely on the MSM as their sole source of "factual" information. Arggh.
By , at
Wed Jul 04, 11:57:00 AM:
Nancy asks "Related question: is the problem, at least in part (i.e., in addition to personal idelogy), the fact that many (most?) journalists major in journalism?"
Answer - Journalists who receive their training at schools of journalism are akin to teachers who receive their training at schools of education: as worthless as a pair of tits on a fish.
By Dawnfire82, at
Wed Jul 04, 12:36:00 PM:
By SR, at
Wed Jul 04, 12:38:00 PM:
Back when I was waiting to get into med school, I applied and ws accepted in a Master's degree program for journalism at, of all places, U.C. Berkeley.
At least they used to get it. One prof urged me to apply because he said there was a severe shortage of science writers. I wanted to write sports, but no matter. Med School it was.
By , at
Wed Jul 04, 01:57:00 PM:
Wow, TigerH, you should go on vacation more often, this piece is energized.
Clap*clap
By , at
Wed Jul 04, 02:09:00 PM:
@DEC:
"Here are the top two stories at the moment:
1. Civilians killed in U.S. military action (insert number and location here).
...
How many times do you see variations of those two stories in a month? "
Ah, the sarcasm of the self righteous!
Civilians (outside the United States, of course) are killed everyday by US or NATO military personnel (Iraq or Afghanistan these days; in the decades gone by, well, close your eyes and point your finger to any part of the globe). And that sounds repetitive/contrived/silly/(insert adjective) to you? Your response to human tragedy being caused by your armed forces (albeit to camel herders 10000 miles away, and not white-skinned Bible spewing Christians) is that there is no 'variety' in this story???? How does one even respond to such an attitude?? This is beyond callous arrogance...this borders on the xenophobic! This also shows the sad situation that results when seemingly intelligent people of what they like to call a progressive democracy are brainwashed by a media more interested in celebrity scandals than the life and death of millions of people, and who are so out of touch with the reality of the world around them that they are ready to equate state-sanctioned murder with entertainment in the media.
And please, not those sob stories again about Americans being killed in the 911 attacks. Ask the families whose children were wiped out in villages of Afghanistan in pre-dawn US and NATO bombings (how many times...I have even lost count). How is their tragedy any lesser than the 911 victims? Oh, I'm sorry...theirs not to think about??
Sorry, if this rant has nothing to do with the original post, but misplaced ignorant drivel needs to be responded to.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Wed Jul 04, 02:50:00 PM:
"Ah, the sarcasm of the self righteous!"
No, the experience of a former journalist.
By , at
Wed Jul 04, 05:50:00 PM:
Hey Anonymous - Great show of emotion in your comment! Next time maybe you can make a show of paragraph formatting as well.
Hey TH - GREAT posting, as usual.
By , at
Wed Jul 04, 06:16:00 PM:
Anon:
You are quite correct. Anyone getting their intelligence from the media would read what you indicate.
However, any rational thinking person stopped taking the media's line some time ago.
As an example, recently the
AP published a report of 24 headless corpses being found. This was reported widely by the world's media.
The report was by annonymous sources and nobody seems to be able to find the corpses.
Contrast this with a report by Michael Yon, a freelance reporter with US and Iraqi forces: bless-the-beasts-and-children
Yon was on site in a village where they could not find any people or animals. They soon discovered men women and children, some beheaded and or tortured, in shallow graves.
Contrast the AP report broadcast far and wide with Yon's on site report which included pictures.
I doubt if anyone has reported the actual attrocities.
Anon. I originally thought you were one of the mindless drones spouting forth the drivel of the left, or possibly one of the Jihadis directed to infiltrate blogs with your thoughtfull wisdom, I now realise that I may be mistaken. It is quite likely you are just someone who gets most of his information from the mainstream media.
By , at
Wed Jul 04, 06:31:00 PM:
I apologize for the bad links above. I cannot get my links to work so I am including the full links.
Anon:
You are quite correct. Anyone getting their intelligence from the media would read what you indicate.
However, any rational thinking person stopped taking the media's line some time ago.
As an example, recently the
AP published a report of 24 headless corpses being found (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/30/africa/ME-GEN-Iraq-Bodies.php). This was reported widely by the world's media.
The report was by annonymous sources and nobody seems to be able to find the corpses.
Contrast this with a report by Michael Yon, a freelance reporter with US and Iraqi forces: bless-the-beasts-and-children ( http://www.michaelyon-online.com/wp/bless-the-beasts-and-children.htm)
Yon was on site in a village where they could not find any people or animals. They soon discovered men women and children, some beheaded and or tortured, in shallow graves.
The AP report was broadcast far and wide but I doubt if many included Yon's on site report which included pictures.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Wed Jul 04, 09:26:00 PM:
Foundation of medicine? There was no foundation of medicine anywhere until the last 200 years. Certainly you can take what they knew in 1800 and trace it back to where it came from to call that a "foundation." It's still next to nothing.
Even in the early 20th C doctors couldn't do much for you. They could tell you your heart wasn't good enough for the army, estimate if what you had would kill you, tell you to stop drinking, or offer the occasional folk medicine for constipation or skin discomfort.
By , at
Thu Jul 05, 12:11:00 AM:
Assistant Village Idiot:
"There was no foundation of medicine anywhere until the last 200 years. "
Maybe you should check with the Indians and Chinese first? Last I read, they had books on anatomy, physiology, surgery and medicine 2000 years ago.
By , at
Thu Jul 05, 04:03:00 AM:
Yes the Chinese had books on medicine and so on, so did the Indians.
They were fairly useless.
For one, neither understood medical principles like circulation of the blood, respiration, etc. Negative and positive Chi, "cold energy" and suchlike may do for stupid New Age Hippies but for serious treatment of heart disease, cancer, spinal injuriies, and so on it's about as useful as Laetril. A placebo and that's it.
Muslims by the 1300's were importing first Jewish doctors from the West, then by the 1500's CHRISTIAN doctors from the West. That's it.
ALL the medical research centers and advances in medicine are in the West, mostly in the US (and Israel). Israel has made advances in genetic tests for certain types of cancer for example. And low radiation X-rays. The US accounts for pretty much everything else.
Muslims have contributed almost nothing to science. A bit of optics and Algebra (borrowed from the Indians, along with the zero). Example: in 2000 Spain translated more books into Spanish than had been translated into the entire Arab world EVER.
It's pathetic.
To the American hating lunatic above: America is the greatest country in the world and Americans are the greatest people. You obviously are not an American, so the only appropriate reaction is pity. The pity given a severely retarded child who with all his intellect achieves ... eating the paste.
By , at
Thu Jul 05, 05:26:00 AM:
To the moron above:
Sorry about your ignorance, but you're hardly to blame. I'm sure you were too busy studying how god created the earth in 12 days...or was it 14?
You got one thing right though...I'm not American...and thank God for that!!
"They were fairly useless."
"Negative and positive energy"???
WTF? Yeah, sure, and the Chinese eat their kids and the Indians go to school on elephants to learn how to charm snakes.
Since you don't sound like the kind who would pick up a book without coersion, let me quote for you a few paragraphs from Wikipedia (from the post on 'Science and Technology in Ancient India') (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_and_technology_in_ancient_India):
"
In 2001, archaeologists studying the remains of two men from Mehrgarh, Pakistan, made the discovery that the people of Indus Valley Civilization, even from the early Harappan periods (c. 3300 BC), had knowledge of medicine and dentistry. The physical anthropologist that carried out the examinations, Professor Andrea Cucina from the University of Missouri-Columbia, made the discovery when he was cleaning the teeth from one of the men (see History of medicine). Later research in the same area found evidence of teeth having been drilled, dating back 9,000 years. [2]
The science of medicine in ancient India is known as "Ayurveda", literally, "the science of life or longevity" in Sanskrit from "ayur" (age or life) and "veda" (knowledge). Ayurveda constitutes ideas about ailments and diseases, their symptoms, diagnosis and cure, and relies heavily on herbal medicine, including extracts from several plants. This reliance on herbs differentiates ayurveda from systems like allopathy and homeopathy. Ayurveda has also always dissociated itself from witch doctors and voodoo.
Ancient scholars of India like Atreya,[3] and Agnivesa have dealt with principles of ayurveda as long back as 800 BC. Their works and other developments were consolidated by Charaka into a compendium of ayurvedic principles and practices ,Charaka-Samahita, which remained a standard textbook for almost 2000 years, translated into many languages including Arabic and Latin. It deals with a variety of matters covering physiology, etiology and embryology, concepts of digestion, metabolism, and immunity. Preliminary concepts of genetics are also mentioned; for example, Charaka theorized that blindness from the birth is not due to a defect in the mother or father, but originates in the ovum and the sperm.
Advances in the field of medical surgery were also made in ancient India, including plastic surgery, extraction of catracts and even dental surgery. The roots of ancient Indian surgery go back to at least circa 800 BC. The medical theoretician and practitioner Sushruta lived around the 6th century BC in Kasi (now called Varanasi). He wrote the medical compendium Shushruta-Samahita describing at least seven branches of surgery: Excision, Scarification, Puncturing, Exploration, Extraction, Evacuation, and Suturing. It also deals with matters like rhinoplasty (plastic surgery) and ophthalmology (ejection of cataracts). It also focuses on the study the human anatomy by using a dead body. Shushruta also describes over 120 surgical instruments, 300 surgical procedures and classifies human surgery in 8 categories. Because of his seminal and numerous contributions to the science and art of surgery he is also known by the title "Father of Surgery." Susrutha is also the father of plastic surgery and cosmetic surgery since his technique of forehead flap rhinoplasty (repairing the disfigured nose with a flap of skin from the forehead) that he used to reconstruct noses that were amputated as a punishment for crimes, is practiced almost unchanged in technique to this day. The Susrutha Samhita contains the first known description of several operations, including the uniting of bowel, the removal of the prostate gland, the removal of cataract lenses and the draining of abscesses. Susrutha was also the first surgeon to advocate the practice of operations on inanimate objects such as watermelons, clay plots and reeds; thus predating the modern practice of the surgical workshop by hundreds of years. Inoculation was practiced in China, India, and Turkey, and was a precursor to vaccination for smallpox.
Yoga is a system of exercise for physical and mental nourishment. Its origins are shrouded in antiquity and mystery. Since Vedic times, the principles and practice of yoga have crystallized. But it was only around 200 BC that the fundamentals of yoga were collected by Patanjali in his treatise Yogasutra ("Yoga-Aphorisms"; see Yoga Sutras of Patanjali). In short, Patanjali surmised that through the practice of yoga, the energy latent within the human body may be released, which has a salubrious effect on the body and the mind. Modern clinical practices have established that several ailments, including hypertension, clinical depression, amnesia, acidity, can be controlled and managed by yogic practices. The application of yoga in physiotherapy is also gaining recognition.
Will Durant wrote in Our Oriental Heritage:
"As far as the sixth century BC Hindu physicians described ligaments, sutures, lymphatics, nerve plexus, fascia, adipose and vascular tissues, mucous and synovial membranes, and many more muscles than any modern cadaver is able to show. The doctors of pre-Christian India shared Aristotle's mistaken conception of the heart as the seat and organ of consciousness, and supposed that the nerves ascended to and descended from the heart. But they understood remarkabley well the processes of digestion – the different functions of the gastric juices, the conversion of chyme into chyle, and of this into blood. Anticipating Weisman by 2400 years, Atreya (ca 500 BC) held that the parental seed is independent of the parent's body, and contains in itself, in miniature, the whole parental organism."
"Sushruta laid down elaborate rules for preparing an operation, and his suggestion that they would be sterilized by fumigation is one of the earliest known efforts at antiseptic surgery. Both Sushruta and Charaka mention the use of medicinal liquors to produce insensibility to pain. In 927 AD two surgeons trepanned the skull of a Hindu king, and made him insensitivie to the operation by administering a drug."
"In the time of Alexander, says Garrison, 'Hindu physicians and surgeons enjoyed a well-deserved reputation for superior knowledge and skill' and even Aristotle is believed by some students to have been indebted to them."
"Lord Ampthill concludes that medieval and modern Europe owes its system of medicine directly to the Arabs, and through them to India."
Again, this is the ancient world we're talking about. There is absolutely no doubt that since the Industrial Revolution, the west has moved ahead by leaps and bounds, helped in great part, of course, by colonial plunder of the eastern world.
By , at
Thu Jul 05, 09:24:00 AM:
What a screed! Your fingers must be tired.
"Since you don't sound like the kind who would..." use you head for anything other than a paper weight, Sir Alexander Fleming did more in 10 minutes than ALL of those "ancients" did combined over ALL those centuries. You doubt that, I'm sure... and you have the temerity to call somebody else here a moron? I'd sooner have my pharmacist's assistant handle my cataract surgery than even the brightest "ancient". You come across like some kind of kook.
But, in the words of that great, wizened courtroom sage, Spencer Tracy (Inherit the Wind, 1960?) let's play in your ballpark. You claim to believe that "... medieval and modern Europe owes its system of medicine directly to the Arabs..." OK, then what sidetracked these wondrous Arab scientists from their eternal quest for medical knowledge?
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Thu Jul 05, 12:52:00 PM:
Don't feed the left-wing troll, folks.
Re: "I'm sure you were too busy studying how god created the earth in 12 days...or was it 14?"
No devout Muslim would be that
blasphemous.
By , at
Thu Jul 05, 02:39:00 PM:
Left-wing troll...;-)
You a funny man DEC!
"Your fingers must be tired."
Not really. There is such a thing as cut and paste, y'know?
"I'd sooner have my pharmacist's assistant handle my cataract surgery than even the brightest 'ancient'."
And so would I, o wise one. The point here was to address the ignorance shown by Anon earlier about his assumption that medical science suddenly flowered in Europe and the United States in the middle of the 18th century (I believe he mentioned Israel too). Perhaps all the knowledge was handed down by god in nicely carved stone templates, on top of a hill.
Who cares what the Muslims/Arabs invented/discovered or didn't. My point was to address your supremely arrogant and frankly stupid comment that there was no foundation of medicine 'anywhere' until the last 200 years.
And what's a 'kook'? Sorry, not being a white american, I'm not familiar with popular racist epithets in use in your country...
Peace!
By Dawnfire82, at
Thu Jul 05, 08:42:00 PM:
"Later research in the same area found evidence of teeth having been drilled, dating back 9,000 years."
A fine form of torture.
Also, if you would count, you might notice that that would put these teeth drillings at circa 7000 B.C.
According to Wiki, that about matches the invention of small scale agriculture.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture#History
Who knew that dentistry was such an ancient science?
By , at
Thu Jul 05, 11:45:00 PM:
"Who knew that dentistry was such an ancient science? "
Surely not this old boys club. I'm sure your fine literature states that that was about the time when god was removing the rib from Adam?
Of course, if resident genius, dawnfire82, knew how to click on links in Wikipedia, s/he would have seen this bit of info: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4882968.stm
What's that? The BBC...? Must be some leftist propaganda secretly authorized by Castro and Ahmedinajacket and Chavez. No really, you should set the CIA on a fact finding mission...9000 years ago! Baloney!
By , at
Fri Jul 06, 02:47:00 AM:
Saying that ancient tortures masquerading as 'medicine' show that there was a foundation for medicine is about as asinine as saying that astrology shows there was a foundation for astronomy.
This isn't arrogance - it is simply the truth.
I suppose we are supposed to have reverence for the flat earth theory too.
I bet you won't go looking for a yogi when you need a heart valve replaced.
By , at
Fri Jul 06, 04:11:00 AM:
Ken McCracken: I bow to thee.
You've just made the leap from the ancient world to the present and back. I have repeatedly mentioned that the discussion was about ancient medicine. What you call torture today was legitimate medicine thousands of years ago. Your ancestors were in skins, living in caves and wallowing in the mud of western europe. So, if I had an ailment then, I'd take my chances with the 'yogi' I think.
The flat earth theory wasn't held by any 'yogi', but by the christian church, in europe.
But hey, you aren't arrogant. You just speak the truth.
Know what, I just realized what an ass I've been, trying to talk sense on a right-wing American blog. What a waste of time...
So long. Cheers!
By , at
Fri Jul 06, 07:48:00 AM:
Well, yes you are an ass.
You did get that part right.
Snotty condescension masquerading as enlightenment, pretending that the germ theory of infection, penicillin and vaccinations would somehow be impossible without the noble ancient arabs.
You just can't stand the fact that those are western inventions, can you. You have to point to fables to try and distract from that.
Are you that ashamed of your own heritage?
By , at
Fri Jul 06, 01:17:00 PM:
I'm not Arab, and that isn't my heritage.
Not that you'd know the difference anyway.
Shubho
By , at
Fri Jul 06, 02:51:00 PM:
I didn't say you were an arab.
Oh, do tell us what your heritage is, why don't you, if it is so grand and glorious.
You aren't afraid to tell us, are you? Or is your background so very shameful that you don't dare? Why keep it a secret otherwise?
All I know about your heritage is that you are a bigot against whites and the west.
By , at
Fri Jul 06, 03:55:00 PM:
"All I know about your heritage is that you are a bigot "
Yeah right!!! On THIS blog, that is rich!!!!
By , at
Fri Jul 06, 04:08:00 PM:
Ancient medicine from all cultures is equally useless and pointless.
Modern medicine actually works.
That is bigoted?
You have an odd definition of bigotry.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Jul 06, 04:35:00 PM:
big·ot·ry /ˈbɪgətri/ [big-uh-tree]
–noun, plural -ries.
1. Not ascribing to the modern Western liberal cult of cultural self-loathing.
2. Contradicting followers of same.
Indeed.
