The ''Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon'' is a work written in the 13th century by the Arab physician

Ibn al-Nafis ʿAlāʾ al-Dīn Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Abī Ḥazm al-Qarashī (Arabic: علاء الدين أبو الحسن عليّ بن أبي حزم القرشي ), known as Ibn al-Nafīs (Arabic: ابن النفيس), was an Arab polymath whose area ...

. A manuscript of the work was discovered in 1924 in the archives of the

Prussian State Library The Berlin State Library (; officially abbreviated as ''SBB'', colloquially ''Stabi'') is a universal library in Berlin, Germany, and a property of the German public cultural organization the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (). Founded i ...

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

, Germany. It contains the earliest descriptions of the

coronary circulation Coronary circulation is the Circulatory system#Coronary vessels, circulation of blood in the arteries and veins that supply the cardiac muscle, heart muscle (myocardium). Coronary arteries supply oxygen saturation (medicine), oxygenated blood to ...

and

pulmonary circulation The pulmonary circulation is a division of the circulatory system in all vertebrates. The circuit begins with deoxygenated blood returned from the body to the right atrium of the heart where it is pumped out from the right ventricle to the lun ...

systems. The manuscript records Ibn Nafis' prediction of the existence of the

capillaries A capillary is a small blood vessel, from 5 to 10 micrometres in diameter, and is part of the microcirculation system. Capillaries are microvessels and the smallest blood vessels in the body. They are composed of only the tunica intima (the in ...

which he described as perceptible passages (''manafidh'') between pulmonary artery and pulmonary vein. These passages would later be identified by

Marcello Malpighi Marcello Malpighi (10 March 1628 – 30 November 1694) was an Italians, Italian biologist and physician, who is referred to as the "founder of microscopical anatomy, histology and father of physiology and embryology". Malpighi's name is borne by ...

as capillaries.

Latin translation

The work was translated into Latin by the Italian physician Andrea Alpago, In 1520, Alpago returned to

Padua Padua ( ) is a city and ''comune'' (municipality) in Veneto, northern Italy, and the capital of the province of Padua. The city lies on the banks of the river Bacchiglione, west of Venice and southeast of Vicenza, and has a population of 20 ...

with a Latin translation of the commentary, after living in the

Arabian Peninsula The Arabian Peninsula (, , or , , ) or Arabia, is a peninsula in West Asia, situated north-east of Africa on the Arabian plate. At , comparable in size to India, the Arabian Peninsula is the largest peninsula in the world. Geographically, the ...

for 30 years.

Reception

{{quote, text=When he (

) was only 29, he published his most important work, the ''Commentary on Anatomy in

Avicenna Ibn Sina ( – 22 June 1037), commonly known in the West as Avicenna ( ), was a preeminent philosopher and physician of the Muslim world, flourishing during the Islamic Golden Age, serving in the courts of various Iranian peoples, Iranian ...

's Canon'', which included his ground-breaking views on the pulmonary circulation and heart, sign=''

Journal of Applied Physiology The ''Journal of Applied Physiology'' is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal of physiology published by the American Physiological Society. The journal was established in 1948, and is currently edited by Sue Bodine. According to the ''Journa ...

References

Medical manuscripts Medical works of the medieval Islamic world Avicenna

Latin translation

Reception

See also

References