Masawaiyh

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Masawaiyh

Yuhanna ibn Masawaih, also written Ibn Masawaih, Masawaiyh, and in Latin Mesue, Masuya, Mesue Major, Msuya, and Mesue the Elder was an Assyrian

Assyrian

Assyrian may refer to:in antiquity:*ancient Assyria**the Old Assyrian period **the Middle Assyrian period **the Neo-Assyrian period *Assyria , a province of the Achaemenid Empire...
physician from the Academy of Gundishapur

Academy of Gundishapur

The Academy of Gundishapur was a renowned academy of learning in the city of Gundeshapur during late antiquity, the intellectual center of the Sassanid empire....
. According to The Canon of Medicine
The Canon of Medicine

The Canon of Medicine is a 14-volume Islamic medicine written by a Science in medieval Islam and physician Avicenna and completed in 1025....
for Avicenna

Avicenna

, known as Abu Ali Sina Balkhi or Ibn Sina and commonly known in English by his Latinized name Avicenna , was a Persian people polymath and the foremost Islamic medicine and Early Islamic philosophy of his time....
and 'Uyun al-Anba for the medieval Arab

Arab

An Arab is a person who Identity as such on linguistic or cultural grounds. The plural form, Arabs , refers to the Ethnocultural group at large....
ic historian Ibn Abi Usaybi'a, Masawaiyh's father was Assyrian and his mother was Slavic

Slavic peoples

The Slavic Peoples are a linguistic branch of Indo-European peoples, living mainly in eastern Europe. From the early 6th century they spread from their original homeland to inhabit most of eastern Central Europe, Eastern Europe and the Balkans....
.

Born in 777 CE as the son of a pharmacist

Pharmacist

Pharmacists are health professionals who practice the science of pharmacy. In their traditional role, pharmacists typically take a request for medicines from a prescribing health care provider in the form of a medical prescription and dispense the medication to the patient and counsel them on the proper use and adverse effects of that medic...
and physician from Gundishapur, he came to Baghdad

Baghdad

Baghdad is the Capital of Iraq and of Baghdad Governorate, with which it is also coterminous. With a municipal population estimated at 6.5 million, it is the largest city in Iraq, and the second largest city in the Arab World....
and studied under Jabril ibn Bukhtishu

Jabril ibn Bukhtishu

Jabril ibn Bukhtishu, also written as Bakhtyshu, was an 8-9th century physician from the famous Bukhtishu family of Persian Nestorian physicians from the Academy of Gundishapur....
.

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Yuhanna ibn Masawaih, also written Ibn Masawaih, Masawaiyh, and in Latin Mesue, Masuya, Mesue Major, Msuya, and Mesue the Elder was an Assyrian

Assyrian

Academy of Gundishapur

Avicenna

Arab

Slavic peoples

Pharmacist

Baghdad

Jabril ibn Bukhtishu

Jabril ibn Bukhtishu, also written as Bakhtyshu, was an 8-9th century physician from the famous Bukhtishu family of Persian Nestorian physicians from the Academy of Gundishapur....
. He wrote mostly in Syriac

Syriac language

Syriac is a dialect of Middle Aramaic that was once spoken across much of the Fertile Crescent. Classical Syriac became a major literary language throughout the Middle East from the 4th to the 8th centuries, the classical language of Edessa, Mesopotamia, preserved in a large body of Syriac literature....
and Arabic

Arabic language

Arabic is a Central Semitic language, thus related to and classified alongside other Semitic languages languages such as Hebrew language and Aramaic language....
.

He became director of a hospital in Baghdad

Baghdad

Ophthalmology

Ophthalmology is the branch of medicine which deals with the Eye diseases and Eye surgery of the visual pathways, including the eye, brain, and areas surrounding the eye, such as the lacrimal system and eyelids....
, fevers, headache, melancholia, diatetics, the testing of physicians, and medical aphorism

Aphorism

The word aphorism denotes an original thought, spoken or written in a laconic and easily memorable form.The name was first used in the Aphorisms of Hippocrates....
s.

Masawayh became personal physician to four caliph

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah....
s. He composed a considerable number of Arabic medical monographs, on topics including fevers, leprosy, melancholy, dietetics, eye diseases, and medical aphorisms.

It was reported that Ibn Masawayh regularly held an assembly of some sort, where he consulted with patients and discussed subjects with pupils. Ibn Masawayh apparently attracted considerable audiences, having acquired a reputation for repartee.

He was also the teacher of Hunain ibn Ishaq. He translated various Greek

Greek language

Greek is an Indo-European languages native to the southern Balkan peninsula, the language of the Greek people. It forms an independent branch within Indo-European....
medical works into Syriac. Apes were supplied to him by the caliph

Caliph

The Caliph is the head of state in a Caliphate, and the title for the leader of the Islamic Ummah, an Islamic community ruled by the Shari'ah....
al-Mu'tasim

Al-Mu'tasim

Abu Ishaq al-Mu'tasim ibn Harun was an Abbasid caliph . He succeeded his half-brother al-Ma'mun....
for dissection

Dissection

Dissection is usually the process of disassembling and observing something to determine its internal structure and as an aid to discerning the function and relationships of its components....
.

Many anatomical and medical writings are credited to him, notably the "Disorder of the Eye" (Daghal al-'ain), which is the earliest Systematic treatise on ophthalmology

Ophthalmology

Ophthalmology is the branch of medicine which deals with the Eye diseases and Eye surgery of the visual pathways, including the eye, brain, and areas surrounding the eye, such as the lacrimal system and eyelids....
extant in Arabic and the Aphorisms, the Latin translation of which was very popular in the Middle Ages

Middle Ages

File:Karl 1 mit papst gelasius gregor1 sacramentar v karl d kahlen.jpgThe Middle Ages of European history are a period in history which lasted for roughly a millennium, commonly dated from the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century to the beginning of the Early Modern Period in the 16th century, marked by the division of Western Christi...
.

He died in Samarra

Samarra

Samarra is a city in Iraq.It stands on the east bank of the Tigris in the Salah al-Din Governorate, north of Baghdad and, in 2003, had an estimated population of 348,700....
in 857 CE.

Sources

For his life and writings, see:

J.-C. Vadet, "Ibn Masawayh" in, The Encyclopaedia of Islam, 2nd edition, ed. by H.A.R. Gibbs, B. Lewis, Ch. Pellat, C. Bosworth et al., 11 vols. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960-2002) vol. 3, pp. 872-873
Manfred Ullmann, Die Medizin im Islam, Handbuch der Orientalistik, Abteilung I, Ergänzungsband vi, Abschnitt 1 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), pp. 112-115
Fuat Sezgin, Medizin-Pharmazie-Zoologie-Tierheilkunde bis ca 430 H., Geschichte des arabischen Schrifttums, Band 3 (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1970), pp. 231-236.

Masawaiyh

Sources

See also