A critical appraisal of 11th century treatise by Ibn Sina (Avicenna) on the anatomy of the vascular system: Comparison with modern anatomic descriptions

Revisiting Avicenna’s (ad 980–1037) Anatomical Concepts of the Musculoskeletal and Peripheral Nervous Systems in the Canon of Medicine

“…To reiterate their importance in medical history, numerous historical scientists including early Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Persians described the anatomy and management of disease conditions associated with each region of the body. It is prudent to say that modern scientific achievements are indebted to the past [1,2]. The objective of the current research is to investigate the accuracy and relevance of Avicenna's (AD 980-1037) anatomy of the musculoskeletal and peripheral nervous system and compare it to modern anatomy discourse.…”

“…Analysis of Avicenna's anatomical concepts as presented in the Canon of Medicine has become increasingly popular and several researches have been published to date [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]. Common findings from these researches point out to the relevance of Avicenna's anatomy and its place in revolutionizing modern medicine.…”

“…Common findings from these researches point out to the relevance of Avicenna's anatomy and its place in revolutionizing modern medicine. Avicenna adopted the practical approach towards the descriptions of the human body and the associated diseases [1,2,15,16], which is the main scientific approach in modern medicine. In his treatise, Avicenna emphasized the importance of anatomy of the human body and encouraged physicians to consider the normal anatomy of organs in their diagnosis [1,2,9,16,17].…”

“…Avicenna adopted the practical approach towards the descriptions of the human body and the associated diseases [1,2,15,16], which is the main scientific approach in modern medicine. In his treatise, Avicenna emphasized the importance of anatomy of the human body and encouraged physicians to consider the normal anatomy of organs in their diagnosis [1,2,9,16,17]. The current review was therefore intended to analyse and compare Avicenna's treatise on the anatomy of musculoskeletal and peripheral nervous systems presented in volume one and three of the Canon of Medicine [18] (and translated versions into English) [19,20] with modern descriptions in extant medical anatomy literature.…”