Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi
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Ali ibn Abbas al-Majusi, also known as Masoudi, was a famous Persian physician.
His Latin name was Ali Abbas or Haly Abbas, and was born in Ahwaz, southwestern Persia. He flourished under the Buwayhid Amir Adhad al-dowleh, and died in 994.
Known to Europeans as Holy Abbas, Majusi was from a Persian family with Zoroastrian forebears, though he himself was a Muslim.
He is considered one of the three greatest physicians of the Eastern Caliphate in his time. He studied under Shaikh Abu Maher Musa ibn Sayyār.
He wrote for Adhud al-dowleh a medical encyclopedia called The Complete Book of the Medical Art (Kitab al-Maliki, Liber regalis, Regalis dispositio; also called Kamil as-sina'a at-tibbiyya), which is more systematic and concise than Razi's Hawi, but more practical than Avicenna's Canon of Medicine, by which it was superseded. It was dedicated to Adhud al-Dawlah Fana-Khusraw.
The Maliki is divided into 20 discourses, of which the first half deal with theory and the other with the practice of medicine. Some examples of topics covered are dietetics and materia medica, a rudimentary conception of the capillary system, interesting clinical observations, and proof of the motions of the womb during parturition (e.g. the child does not come out; it is pushed out).
He dedicated his Complete Book of the Medical Art (Kitab Kamil as-sina'a at-tibbiyya) to the Buwayhid ‘Adud al-Dawlah Fana-Khusraw, the ruler of Persia and Iraq from 949 CE to 983 CE and founder of hospitals in both Baghdad and Shiraz.
There is no firm evidence that al-Majusi himself ever left Persia to work elsewhere. The Complete Book of the Medical Art is the only treatise known to have been written by him.
[edit] Sources
For evidence regarding his life, see:
- Lutz Richter-Bernburg, "‘Ali b. ‘Abbas Majusi", in Encyclopedia Iranica, ed. Ehsan Yarshater, 6+ vols. (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul and Costa Mesa: Mazda, 1983 to present), vol. 1, pp. 837-8
- Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abteilung I, Erg?nzungsband vi, Abschnitt 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), pp. 140-146
- Fuat Sezgin, Medizin-Pharmazie-Zoologie-Tierheilkunde bis ca 430 H., Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Band 3 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), pp. 320-322
- Manfred Ullmann, Islamic Medicine (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978, reprinted 1997), pp. 55-85.
- Wustenfeld: Geschichte der arabischen Aerzte (59, 1840).
- Edward G. Browne, Islamic Medicine, 2002, p.53-54, ISBN 81-87570-19-9
