The Royal Society of Medicine

Additional material for this article is available from The James Lind Library website [www.jameslindlibrary.org] where this paper was previously published. Although Baghdad was only 50 years old in the 9th century, it was at the peak of its political power; a powerhouse of learning and the leading medical centre of the time. It was there that many important Greek works were translated into Arabic, including Dioscorides’s Materia medica, which formed the basis for Arabic pharmacology. While Islamic physicians revered Greek medicine and seldom questioned it, they began to add comments and to contribute views in the 9th century CE, and observations of their own. Of the physicians who worked in Baghdad during this era, one stands out as quite exceptional. Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakariyya al-Razi (865–925 CE; 251–313 AH)—known to the Latin world as Rhazes—was so calle