In the field of medicine, the Arabs improved upon the healing arts of ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt.

Al-Razi, a medical encyclopedist of the ninth century, was an authority on contagion. Among his many volumes of medical surveys, perhaps the most famous is the Kitab al-Mansuri. It was used in Europe until the sixteenth century. Al-Razi was the first to diagnose smallpox and measles, to associate these diseases and others with human contamination and contagion, to introduce such remedies as mercurial ointment, and to use animal gut for sutures.

The famous scientist-philosopher known in Europe as Avicenna was Ibn Sina, an Arab. He was the greatest writer of medicine in the Middle Ages, and his Canon was required reading throughout Europe until the seventeenth century. Avicenna did pioneer work in mental health, and was a forerunner of today's psychotherapists. He believed that some illnesses were psychosomatic, and he sometimes led patients back to a recollection of an incident buried in the subconscious in order to explain the present ailmments.

In the fourteenth Century, when the Great Plague ravaged the world, Ibn Khatib and Ibn Khatima of Granada recognized that it was spread by contagion. In his book, Kitabu’l Maliki, al-Maglusi showed a rudimentary conception of the capillary system; an Arab from Syria, Ibn al-Nafis, discovered the fundamental principles of pulmonary circulation.

Camphor, cloves, myrrh, syrups, juleps, and rosewater were stocked in Arab sydaliyah (pharmacies) centuries ago. Herbal medicine was widely used in the Middle East, and basil, oregano, thyme, fennel, anise, licorice, coriander, rosemary, nutmeg, and cinnamon found their