Abu al-Qasim Al-Zahrawi

The Father of Modern Surgery

Al-Zahrawi is a 10th century Arab physician, surgeon and chemist. He is considered as the best surgeon of his time. He is the author of Al-Tasrif, an illustrated encyclopaedia of medicine and surgery. It is the first book of this size devoted solely to surgery. It has had tremendous influence in the Islamic World, as well as in Christian Europe. After translation, it stood for nearly 500 years as the leading textbook on surgery in Europe.

Birth

Al Zahrawi was born at Madinat al-Zahra near Cordoba in Islamic Spain around 936 CE. He descended from the Ansar tribe of Arabia who had settled earlier in Spain.

Al-Zahrawi the surgeon

Abulcasis studied medicine and other sciences in the schools of Cordoba. He quickly distinguished himself in the field of surgery, traumatology, emergency, orthopedics, ophthalmology. The Andalusian Caliph Al-Hakam II appointed him Court physician.

Al-Zahrawi the scholar

The Al-Tasrif, completed about 1000 CE, was the result of almost fifty years of medical practice and experience. Al-Tasrif is an illustrated encyclopaedia of medicine and surgery in 1500 pages. The contents of the book show that Al-Zahrawi was not only a medical scholar, but a great practicing physician and surgeon.

Death

Cordoba, Spain died c. 1013 CE

Inventions and discoveries

First guide for over 200 instruments, some of which he has invented himself: scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery.

He described, for the first time in medical history, a haemorrhagic disease transmitted by unaffected women to their male children; today we call it haemophilia

Legacy

Many surgeons, such as Roger de Parme, Guillaume de Salicet, Henri de Mondeville, Guy de Chauliac used Al-Zahrawi's work in the centuries after his death. He is part of a long line of Muslim doctors that shaped European surgical procedures until the Renaissance.