Ibn Zuhr

Arab physician, surgeon and poet (1094–1162)

Ibn Zuhr practised at a period when medicine itself was being rebuilt on new foundations.

The record lists Ibn Zuhr as Arab physician, surgeon and poet (1094–1162).

Ibn Zuhr was born at Peñaflor in 1092. His recorded nationality is Taifa of Seville.

Much of this period's medical learning passed through the Islamic world, where Greek texts were preserved, corrected and extended.

The recorded fields of work are poet, physician and medicine.

His principal contribution is al-Taysīr fī al-Mudāwāh wa-al-Tadbīr. Clinical knowledge is accumulated slowly and revised often, usually at some cost.

That the work was done from Taifa of Seville matters: hospitals, training and research funding are unevenly distributed, and they decide which questions can be asked.

Ibn Zuhr died in 1162, aged 70. What survives is the change in practice, which is how a medical life is actually measured.

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