Resident Physician Rhode Island Hospital/Brown Univeristy Providence, Rhode Island, United States
Disclosure(s):
Hael Abdulrazeq, MD: No financial relationships to disclose
Introduction: Knowledge of cranial nerve anatomy has evolved over centuries, from the writings of Galen in the second century who described 7 nerves, to Versailles in the 16th century, to our current 12-nerve anatomical understanding adopted under Soemmerring in the 18th century. The Arabic golden age of medical transcription is often overlooked given little of that period remained after the end of Islamic rule . Here we translate a chapter found in medical text As-Safwa by Iraqi Physician Al-Masihi, as seen in the Wellcome Online Library.
Methods: The manuscript of As-Safwa by Abu Nasr Al-Masihi, which was obtained from the Arabic Manuscripts Collection of the Wellcome Library (London), was reviewed and relevant chapters on neuroanatomy of the cranial nerves was translated by the primary author. A transcript of the chapter was included as it is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Results: Abu Nasr S Al-Masihi was a physician who resided in Baghdad in the 13th century. He was known for having treated the Abbasid Caliph Al-Nasir li-Din Allah. Similar to what was commonly taught by his contemporaries, Al-Masihi described in "As-Safwa" seven cranial nerves. He disregarded the olfactory tract in his discussion and began with discussion of the optic nerve. He singled out this nerve in describing its texture, as did Galen.
Conclusion : The transcription of As-Safwa was completed decades following the fall of the Abbasids. It is likely that Al-Masihi contributed to the House of Wisdom efforts of medical knowledge documentation due to their association with the Royal families which had sponsored the accumulation of scientific texts in Baghdad’s libraries. However, the contributions of many of the physicians of their time will unfortunately remain unknown.
