Periconceptional care and offspring health at birth and long term, from the perspective of Avicenna / 中西医结合学报

Periconceptional care such as lifestyle plays an important impact role in offspring health. The aim of the present study was to clarify the perspective of Avicenna on periconceptional care. Avicenna (980-1037 A.D.) was one of the outstanding Persian physicians, who made great contributions to the field of medical sciences, in particular, obstetrics. In advance, Avicenna's book, Canon of Medicine, was considered to find his perspectives on periconceptional care. Then, his ideas and theories were compared to the current findings by searching the keywords in main indexing systems including PubMed/MEDLINE, Scopus and Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science as well as the search engine of Google Scholar. Current investigations show that gamete quality, pregnancy outcome, and offspring health at birth and long term depend on both parents' lifestyle in pre- and periconceptional period, as well as the intrauterine environment. Avicenna believed that seminal fluid, sperm, ovum, and developing conditions in utero were influenced by the stages of food digestion and the function of some organs. On the other hand, food digestion and function of the organs also depend on each parent's lifestyle and environmental factors. He mentioned 6 principles of healthy lifestyle: exercise, nutrition, sleep and awareness, excretion of body wastes and retention of necessary materials, psychic features, as well as air and climate. Thus, a multicomponent healthy lifestyle should be considered by parents of child-bearing age in an appropriate period before and in early pregnancy as well as elimination of any disorders in parents, to give birth to more healthy offspring.

Aristotle vs Galen: Medieval Reception of Ancient Embryology / 의사학

In their embryology, Aristotle and Galen greatly disagreed on the role of human derived materials like menstrual blood and vaginal secretion (called by them female sperm or semen). This gap made those two ancients also disagree on their understanding of mother's role in the generation of the human body in her womb. During the Middle Ages, especially during the thirteenth century, the scholastics drew on those two ancient thoughts for some rational underpinnings of their philosophical and theological doctrines. However, the manners of adoption and assimilation were varied. For example, Albert the Great strived to reconcile the two in the image of Avicenna, one of the main and the most important sources of Galenist medicine in the thirteenth Century. By contrast, those scholastics who played an important role in the controversy over plurality/unicity of the substantial form, drew on their disagreements. For example, pluralists like Bonaventure, William of la Mare, and Duns Scotus appealed to Galenist medical perspective to underpin their positions and paved ways to decorate Virgin Mary's motherhood and her active contribution to the Virgin birth and to the manhood of her Holy Son. in contrast a unicist like Thomas Aquinas advanced his theory in line with Aristotelian model that Mary's role in her Son's birth and manhood was passive and material. Giles, another unicist, while repudiating Galenist embryology with the support of Averroes's medical work called Colliget, alluded to some theologically crucial impieties with which might be associated some pluralists' Mariology based on the Roman physician's model. In this processus historiae, we can see not only the intertwining of medieval medicine, philosophy, and theology, but some critical moments where medicine provided, side by side with philosophy, natural settings and explanations for religious marvels or miracles such as the Virgin birth, the motherhood of Mary, the manhood of Christ, etc. Likewise, we can observe two medieval maxims coincide and resonate: “philosophia ancilla theologiae” and “philosophia et medicina duae sorores sunt.”

Surgical principles of Ibn Sina (Avicenna).

Ibn Sina is one of the famous physicians of Muslim era. He is accepted as Physician par excellence. In his magnum opus, Al-Qanoon, he has collected all the knowledge of medicine from Hindu, Greek and Islamic sources known in tenth-century to eleventh centuries. It includes principles of surgery as well. Though we are not sure how much surgery he did himself as part of his memoirs are lost but he gives the idea of practice of Surgery of the period. In addition to anatomy, physiology and pathology he goes in the management of most surgical problems from head to toe. He is the first to describe the antiseptic properties of wine. We can also attribute to him the first description of Bennet’s fracture and his description of late splintage of fractures, now we now know as described by George Perkins. He had a great influence on the practice of medicine in the later centuries.

Greco-Arab and Islamic Herbal Medicine: A Review.

Traditional Greco-Arab and Islamic medicine continues to be practiced within the Mediterranean as well as most Islamic countries. This medicine was developed during the Golden Age of Arab-Islamic civilization, which spanned from the seventh to fifteenth century and extended from Spain to Central Asia and India. During the Islamic Golden Age, there was a huge enlightenment in the Arab-Islamic world at a time when Europe was in the grip of the Dark Ages, stifled by Church authority. Greco-Arab and Islamic medicine has influenced the fates and fortunes of countless human beings. It also influenced Europe where it formed the roots from which modern Western medicine arose. There is no doubt that the earlier Greco-Roman scholarly medical literature was the stem from which much Arab-Islamic medicine grew, just as, several centuries later, Arab- Islamic medicine was to be the core of late middle ages and early European medical education. As will be seen in this review, however, Arab-Islamic medicine was not simply a continuation for Greek ideas but it was a venue for innovation and change. Medical innovations introduced by Arab and Muslim physicians included: The discovering of the immune system, the introduction of microbiological science, and the separation of pharmacological science from medicine. The high degree of development achieved in Greco-Arab and Islamic medicine is observable in a statement of Rhazes who said: "when the disease is stronger than the natural resistance of the patient, medicine is of no use. When the patient’s resistance is stronger than the disease, the physician is of no use. When the disease and the patient’s resistance are equally balanced, the physician is needed to help tilt the balance in the patients favour”. This article provides a comprehensive overview on traditional Greco-Arab-Islamic herbal medicine including the historical background, medical innovations introduced by Arab physicians, methods of therapies, and a state of the art description of traditional Arab herbal medicine.

Medieval European Medicine and Asian Spices / 의사학

This article aimed to explain the reasons why Asian spices including pepper, ginger, and cinnamon were considered as special and valuable drugs with curative powers in the Medieval Europe. Among these spices, pepper was most widely and frequently used as medicine according to medieval medical textbooks. We analyzed three main pharmacology books written during the Middle Ages. One of the main reasons that oriental spices were widely used as medicine was due to the particular medieval medical system fundamentally based on the humoral theory invented by Hippocrates and Galen. This theory was modified by Arab physicians and imported to Europe during the Middle Ages. According to this theory, health is determined by the balance of the following four humors which compose the human body: blood, yellow bile, black bile, and phlegm. Each humor has its own qualities such as cold, hot, wet, and dry. Humoral imbalance was one of the main causes of disease, so it was important to have humoral equilibrium. Asian spices with hot and dry qualities were used to balance the cold and wet European diet. The analysis of several major medical textbooks of the Middle Ages proves that most of the oriental spices with hot and dry qualities were employed to cure diverse diseases, particularly those caused by coldness and humidity. However, it should be noted that the oriental spices were considered to be much more valuable and effective as medicines than the local medicinal ingredients, which were not only easily procured but also were relatively cheap. Europeans mystified oriental spices, with the belief that they have marvelous and mysterious healing powers. Such mystification was related to the terrestrial Paradise. They believed that the oriental spices were grown in Paradise which was located in the Far East and were brought to the Earthly world along the four rivers flowing from the Paradise.

History and medicine in history, 450BC – 1450 AD

This article examines the parallel histories of medicine and history to about 1450. They emerged together as part of the shift from poetry to prose in Greek culture in the fifth century BC. They each pursued similar strategies of observation, compilation, and analysis. Hippocratic medicine provided a paradigm for Thucydides‟ development of analytic history. Medicine was further systematised by Galen in the second century AD. After the collapse and division of the Roman Empire, the Dar al-Islam became the main area of intellectual advance. Its scholars had little interest in Graeco-Roman historians, but they translated and used the scientific and medical writers. In both history and medicine they tried to create sciences based on Aristotelian philosophy. The article looks in particular at Avicenna‟s attempt to reconcile Aristotle and Galen, and compares this with the eighteenth century debate between preformationists and epigeneticists. It emphasises the need to look at such arguments in the context of their times, and notes the continuing tension between the simplicity of theory and the messiness of data. The transfer of learning from the Dar al-Islam into Western Europe paralleled that from the Graeco-Roman world into the Dar al-Islam. Again, historical writing was overlooked, but philosophical, scientific, and medical writers were translated. They would be the basis for the development of modern science.

Promote Responsible Research,let the Scientific Research Serve the People——Address on the Awarding Ceremony of The Avicenna Price for Ethics in Science at UNESCO / 中国医学伦理学

It is great honor to be awarded the Avicenna Prize of Ethics in Science by UNESCO.The award is not only a recognition of my own work but also a commendation of the efforts of my colleagues in China who are devoted to the ethics of science and technology and to raising the ethical awareness among scientists,policy makers and the public.I am indebted to international organizations such as UNESCO,and many of my foreign colleagues who have been a constant source of support and inspiration for the past decades.There are two approaches in addressing ethical issues in life science.One is the flying-kite model.The other ethical approach is based on the riding-bicycle model.However,there will never be an omnipotent ethical theory that is capable of resolving all ethical issues in the past,present and future.Our decision should not be reached by direct deduction from any theory or principle alone.It is absolutely necessary to regulate biomedical research and biotechnology to ensure proper development of biomedicine and biotechnology.The institutionalization of bioethics in scientific research aims at building an infrastructure or a framework to protect human subjects.Nevertheless some scientists and policy makers still have misunderstanding about ethics.This shows that attitudes can change and that social progress is possible,but it takes patience and persistent intellectual engagement.The outcome of such a reconciliation approach would be as what Confucius said: he er bu tong(Lun Yu,Chapter 13,paragraph 23).It means "harmonized but not identical" or "harmonized as well as diversified" in China′s and world′s bioethics.