Ibn al-Nafis

Key Accomplishments

• First to accurately describe pulmonary circulation, overturning Galen's model
• Correctly identified that the interventricular septum has no pores for blood to pass through
• Authored "Al-Shamil fi al-Tibb," an ambitious comprehensive medical encyclopedia
• Wrote "Theologus Autodidactus," one of the earliest theological novels
• Served as chief physician at the Mansuri Hospital in Cairo

The Full Story

Ala al-Din Abu al-Hasan Ali ibn Abi al-Hazm al-Qurashi, known as Ibn al-Nafis, was born in 1213 CE near Damascus. He studied medicine at the Nuri Hospital in Damascus, one of the great teaching hospitals of the Islamic world, before relocating to Cairo, where he became chief physician at the Mansuri Hospital and personal physician to Sultan Baybars.

Ibn al-Nafis's greatest contribution came in his "Sharh Tashrih al-Qanun" (Commentary on the Anatomy of the Canon of Ibn Sina), written around 1242. In this work, he challenged the long-accepted Galenic model that claimed blood passed directly from the right to the left ventricle of the heart through invisible pores in the interventricular septum. Ibn al-Nafis correctly argued that there are no such pores, and that blood must travel from the right ventricle to the lungs, where it mixes with air, and then returns to the left ventricle. This was the first accurate description of pulmonary circulation.

Beyond this landmark discovery, Ibn al-Nafis was a prolific author. His "Al-Shamil fi al-Tibb" (The Comprehensive Book on Medicine) was intended as an encyclopedic work of 300 volumes, of which he completed roughly 80 before his death. He also wrote "Theologus Autodidactus" (Fadil ibn Natiq), a philosophical novel that explored the relationship between reason and revelation through the story of a self-taught man on a desert island.

Ibn al-Nafis died in 1288 in Cairo, bequeathing his house and library to the Mansuri Hospital. His description of pulmonary circulation was largely forgotten in the West until its rediscovery in 1924 by Egyptian physician Muhyi al-Din al-Tatawi, though some scholars suggest his work may have reached European scholars indirectly.

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Sources

• [1]S.A. Al-Dabbagh, "Ibn al-Nafis and the Pulmonary Circulation," The Lancet, 1978
• [2]Edward F. Abdel-Halim, "Contributions of Ibn al-Nafis to the Progress of Medicine and Urology," Saudi Medical Journal, 2008
• [3]Peter E. Pormann and Emilie Savage-Smith, "Medieval Islamic Medicine" (Georgetown University Press, 2007)