Arab science in the golden age and today 阿拉伯科学在黄金时代和今天.pdfVIP

The FASEB Journal • Essay Arab science in the golden age (750–1258 C.E.) and today Matthew E. Falagas,*,†,1 Effie A. Zarkadoulia,* and George Samonis‡ *Alfa Institute of Biomedical Sciences (AIBS), Athens, Greece; †Department of Medicine, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA; and ‡Department of Medicine, University of Crete School of Medicine, Heraklion, Crete, Greece The Arab world covers a vast geographic area, comprising many different countries in Asia and Africa. The contemporary world owes much of its progress in all fields of human intellectual activity, including med- icine, to Arabic culture, especially the advancements made during the Golden Age of Arabic-Islamic science (8th to 13th centuries C.E.). The glorious historic background of the Arabic world permits us to identify the debt that humanity owes to the Golden Age of Arabic science and to evaluate the research contribu- tions made by Arab countries to biomedical sciences in our own day. THE GOLDEN AGE OF ARAB SCIENCE The biomedical sciences of the Arabic-Islamic world underwent remarkable development during the 8th to Figure 1. Pottery cup depicting a leopard. Fatimid period, 13th centuries C.E., a flowering of knowledge and Egypt (11th century C.E.). Diameter: 20.4 cm. From the intellect that later spread throughout Europe and Islamic collection of the Benakis Museum, Athens, Greece greatly influenced both medical practice and educa- (printed with permission). tion. The scientific glory of the Arabic nation origi- nated on the Arabian Peninsula in the 7th century C.E., butions of paramount importance to science, medicine, where the preaching of the prophet Mohammed