Abu Bakr Al-Razi
(Rhazes)
(The Father of Pediatrics, Author of the First Medical Book Printed in Europe)
Al-Razi who died in 932 AD, was a renaissance man, a musician who studied philosophy, mathematics, and chemistry. He started studying medicine in Baghdad when he was 40. He wrote 237 books on chemistry, medicine and psychiatry. He also invented sulfuric acid. He was the first to require medical students to undertake graduate studies.
His medical encyclopedia in 25 volumes, Al Hawi Fi Al-Tibb was translated into Latin by Faraj Ibn Salem and was printed in 1486 AD. It was the first medical book ever printed in Europe.
He was the first to use music as a healing aid. He arranged his students in concentric circles with the most advanced in the "inner circle". He was the first to distinguish between smallpox and measles. He was the first to treat pediatrics as a separate discipline and wrote the first book on the subject. He was the first to identify hay fever. His work on kidney stones is still impressive. He was the world's greatest physician in the middle ages. His portraits can be found in the great hall of the school of medicine, University of Paris and in a stained glass window at Princeton University.
When asked to pick the place for a new hospital in Baghdad, he ordered pieces of meat hung in potential sites and ordered the hospital built on the one where the meat showed minimum decay!
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Revised on 10/3/99
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