Article 399: Arabs Need Science of Epidemiology to make a Renaissance-Part Two

Article 399: Arabs Need Science of Epidemiology to make a Renaissance-Part Two

Hasan A. Yahya, Ph.Ds, an Arab American Philosopher

In this part we continue our Historical background of the concept Epidemiology. In the medieval Islamic world, physicians discovered the contagious nature of infectious disease. In particular, the Persian Muslim physician Avicenna, considered a "father of modern medicine," in The Canon of Medicine (1020s), discovered the contagious nature of tuberculosis and sexually transmitted disease, and the distribution of disease through water and soil. Avicenna stated that bodily secretion is contaminated by foul foreign earthly bodies before being infected. He introduced the method of quarantine as a means of limiting the spread of contagious disease. He also used the method of risk factor analysis, and proposed the idea of a syndrome in the diagnosis of specific diseases.

In Europe, epidemiology took root with empirical observations of epidemics and other causes of death. John Graunt (16201674), in London, complied the first mortality tables on England's bills of mortality. Statistical analyses of deaths due to childbed fever by Ignaz Semmelweiss (18181865) in Vienna in the early nineteenth century and of tuberculosis by Pierre Charles Alexandre Louis (17871872) in Paris demonstrated the power of numbers. In London, in 1848 and 1854, meticulous, logical examination of the facts and figures about cholera epidemics by John Snow (18131858) revealed the mode of communication of this deadly epidemic disease. Snow is regarded as the founder of modern epidemiology because of his use of such careful methods.

When the Black Death (bubonic plague) reached Al Andalus in the 14th century, Ibn Khatima hypothesized that infectious diseases are caused by "minute bodies" which enter the human body and cause disease. Another 14th century Andalusian-Arabian physician, Ibn al-Khatib (13131374), wrote a treatise called On the Plague, in which he stated how infectious disease can be transmitted through bodily contact and "through garments, vessels and earrings."

Until early in the twentieth century almost all epidemiology focused on communicable diseases, although Percivall Pott's (17141788) observations on cancer of the scrotum in chimney sweeps and James Lind's dietary experiment with fresh fruit to prevent scurvy (1975) were precursors of modern noncommunicable disease epidemiology and clinical trials, respectively. The use of epidemiology in studies of coronary heart disease and cancer in large-scale trials of many new preventive and therapeutic regimens, in nationwide surveys of health status, and in evaluation of health services came to the fore in the second half of the twentieth century. In the final quarter of the twentieth century, powerful computers, information technology, and more rigorous methodological approaches transformed epidemiology and made it a mandatory feature of clinical science as well as the most fundamental basic science of public health. (529 words) www.askdryahya.com

Sources:

Nutter, Jr., F.W. (1999). "Understanding the interrelationships between botanical, human, and veterinary epidemiology: the Ys and Rs of it all". Ecosys Health 5 (3): 13140.

"Changing Concepts: Background to Epidemiology". Duncan & Associates. http://www.duncan-associates.com/changing_concepts.pdf Retrieved 2008-02-03.

"The Republic, by Plato". The Internet Classic Archive. http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.4.iii.html. Retrieved 2008-02-03.

"A Dissertation on the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality of Mankind". Constitution Society. http://www.constitution.org/jjr/ineq_03.htm.

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