A catalogue of Arabic manuscripts on medicine and science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library / by A.Z. Iskandar.

  • Wellcome Historical Medical Library.
Date:
1967
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: A catalogue of Arabic manuscripts on medicine and science in the Wellcome Historical Medical Library / by A.Z. Iskandar. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    from evacuations, avoiding exhaustion, complying with some of the patient's desires, and keeping him cheerful will aid his strength to repel disease. Contraries to these have the reverse effects. 1 Should you be in doubt as to which is the predominating feature—- disease or strength, you should be inclined to preserve the strength. If a patient weakens, but he gains some appetite, asking for foods which he did not previously desire, and which are not recommended, a little should be allowed. 2 You should do this only with trustworthy and wise patients, not with children and women who may be endangered by thinking that increased amounts of these foods are not harmful. With kings, as regards appetite, you should make restrictions, 3 particularly while the symptoms are prevailing, so as to reinforce your arguments. If you cannot convince them and [must] yield to their wishes, breaking through the boundaries of diet, it will be dangerous, because they may go too far where you meant to allow very little. You should not trust courtiers who justify kings' demands and protest against making them miserable. Patients should be allowed whatever they may desire, provided this does not conflict with the nature of the illness and the mode of treatment; but if it conflicts, abstention should be enforced. Remove the cause of the disease if you think its duration will be short; but if it is protracted endeavour to preserve the patient's strength. If you are uncertain about a disease, leave it for Nature to deal with; and should you decide to test its response to a drug, use little quantities of harmless medicines which cause no alarm if the wrong choice is made. Should you examine a patient without being able to diagnose his case, do not let your wish to appear eminent and experienced force you to prescribe any medicine, even obviously harmless ones. Abstain until you have distinguished the variety of disease, and meanwhile you should preserve the patient's strength. Do not begin a treatment unless you are confident the patient will accept it. Do not rashly treat children, old men, patients whose diseases are protracted, and those who are emaciated with strong drugs, however badly needed, if you think it may cause prostration. Whenever possible do not prescribe any highly purgative medicines. Should you have to administer one to a patient, prepare a counteracting drug. You should realize the danger of giving such drugs to patients who cannot bear their effects. Repeated administration of intensely cold water often suffices to heal patients suffering from severe attacks of acute fevers. 4 Physicians should recognize periods of diseases and the occurrences of crises. Any neglect of such knowledge should not be permitted, otherwise correct treatment is un attainable. You should also realize that particular treatments are required according to each of the periods of disease. If any of these periods has passed, without the required treatment being applied, the patient will have lost necessary treatment. A strong man with abundance of humours . , . should be evacuated. But if the patient is weak and emaciated do not have resort to evacuations, and attempt to modify his 1 Cf. Iskandar, 'Rhazes' K. al-Murshid . . .', 3 Cf. ibid., p. 93 (n. 279). p. 91 (n. 270). 4 Cf. ibid., pp. 106-7. 2 Cf. ibid., p. 92 (n. 278).