Abu Al Qasim Al Zahrawi founder of modern surgery.

  Abu Al Qasim Al Zahrawi founder of modern surgery.

In 936 AD, six miles northwest of Cordoba, the capital of Muslim Spain (Al-Andalus), was born Abu Qasim Khalaf Ibn Abbas Al Zahrawi, also known in the West as Albucasis or Zahravius. His ancestors originated from the Al Ansar tribes of Al Madina Al Munawwarah, who traveled to Spain with the Muslim forces after conquering the country from the Arabian peninsula. Al-Zahrawi was a surgeon, pharmacist, and occasional traveler who lived most of his life in his birthplace.

During what is known as the "Golden Age" of Arab Spain, when the natural and mathematical sciences were at their pinnacle, he worked as the court physician to Caliph Al-Hakam-II. He had a long and illustrious medical career before passing away in 1013 AD at the age of 77.

He authored the well-known book "Al Tasreef Liman 'Ajaz 'Aan Al-Taleef" (The Clearance of Medical Science For Those Who Can Not Compile It) sometime around the year 1000 AD. It was the culmination of roughly fifty years of training, practice, knowledge, and experience in the medical field. The medical encyclopedia's thirty volumes addressed a variety of medical topics. There were sections on midwifery, pharmacology, therapeutics, diettics, psychotherapy, weights and measures, and medical chemistry in addition to parts on medicine and surgery.

Three chapters of Al-Tasreef are devoted to surgery. The following are only a few of the methods and strategies covered in these chapters:

1. surgery on the throat, ears, and eyes. He fully explained tracheostomy and tonsillectomy.
2. He invented tools for an ear's inside evaluation.
3. He created a device for removing or putting things down the throat.
4. He explained how to remove a polyp from the nose using a hook.
5. He described how to separate and disclose the temporal artery in order to treat specific headaches.
6. He used sterilization, usually to treat open abscesses or skin cancers. He performed up to 50 distinct surgeries using the cauterization technique.
7. applying a ligature to bleeding vessels and using catgut for internal stitching. He was five centuries earlier than the renowned French military specialist Ambroise Pare (1510–1590), who has been linked with being the first to use sutures in Europe.
8. Surgery for the repair of anal fistulas.
9. Fixing broken and dislocated bones. He used a similar procedure to Kocher's for establishing and reducing dislocated elbows centuries before Kocher did so for European medicine.
10. eliminating bladder calculi in the urine. He proposed that the treating doctor should place a finger into the patient's rectum, slide the stone to the bladder's neck, then make an incision in the rectal wall or the perineum to remove it.
11. He created equipment for urethra inspection.
12. Accolades to him include being the first to describe a pregnancy that is ectopic.
13. He created many dental tools including vertebrate bone-based replacement teeth.

        Operative surgery is credited to Al Zahrawi as its founder.2,3 He is recognized as having completed the first thyroidectomy.4 His wide book "On Surgery" had a chapter on surgical instruments in it. By all indications, the number of surgical instruments he introduced—more than 200—is astounding. He supplied in-depth explanations about how to use hooks, scalpels, and surgical blades. Additionally, he developed and created maternity forceps, gripping forceps, and surgical scissors. He was the initial person to illustrate surgical instruments for purposes of education and to illustrate how to make them.

After creating surgical tools that were unknown during the Greco-Roman era, Abdel-Halim et al. provided a thorough analysis of Al Zahrawi's cystolithotomy technique. They discussed his surgical methods for operating on female patients, his suggestions for two-stage operations in challenging instances, and his contributions to lithotripsy through the creation of the crushing forceps (Al-Kalaleeb forceps) and driller fragmenting forceps (Al-Mishaab forceps) for removing impacted stones.

Early descriptions of neurosurgical diagnosis and treatments, including as management of head injuries, skull fractures, spinal injuries and dislocations, hydrocephalus, subdural effusions, headache, and many other diseases, were contributed by Al Zahrawi.6 "I have seen a baby boy whose head was abnormally enlarged with prominence of the forehead and sides to the point that the body became unable to hold it up," he said, describing a case of hydrocephalus caused by a congenital abnormality in cerebrospinal fluid drainage.

He also made a big impact on pediatric surgery. He also described harelip, adenoids, ranula, imperforated external urinary meatus, perforated anus, hermaphrodites, gynecomastia, supernumerary, and webbed fingers in addition to hydrocephalus.7 He was the first to thoroughly outline the physiological effects of hemophilia.

Particularly after being translated by Gerard of Cremona, Rogerius Frugardi, Ronaldus Parmensis, and others, his medical writings had great respect in the West. Up until the thirteenth century, his surgical instruction was the most sophisticated in the Middle Ages.

For several centuries, al-Tasreef formed a crucial part of the medical curricula in Europe. 8 He was referenced more than 200 times by the renowned French surgeon Guy de Chauliac (1300–1368) in the Latin edition of his book on surgery. This book (surgical chapters) was published in a several of locations, including Venice (1497), Basel (1541), and Oxford (1778).

Finally, he stressed the need of academic specialization, school curricula, and child education and behavior. He suggested that after finishing their fundamental education in language, grammar, mathematics, astronomy, and philosophy, exceptional and clever students be encouraged to pursue medical studies.1 This page just provides a brief overview of the world's achievements made by this outstanding Arab surgeon from Andalusia in the fields of medicine and surgery.