Abu Ali al-Ḥusayn ibn Abdullah ibn Sina (Avicenna in English) was born in 980 CE in Balkh, Afghanistan and died in 1037 in Hamedan, Iran at 58. He was an astronomer, chemist, logician and mathematician, physicist, scientist, poet, soldier, statesman, theologian, and foremost physician and philosopher of his time.
He wrote 450 works on a wide range of subjects, of which 240 survive. 150 of the surviving works are on philosophy and 40 on medicine. His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a vast philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine which was a standard medical text at Islamic and European universities until the 19th century. It was the first book dealing with experimental medicine, and laid out rules and principles for testing the effectiveness of new medications which still form the basis of modern clinical trials. Ibn Sina is the father of modern medicine and introduced quarantine and the first descriptions on bacteria and viral organisms. He was the first to correctly document the anatomy of the human eye, along with descriptions of eye afflictions such as cataracts. His treatises cover theology, philology, mathematics, astronomy and physics among other sciences. He was a pioneer of aromatherapy and the first to use an air thermometer to measure temperature in his experiments.
He memorized the Qur’an by 7. He turned to medicine at 16, and achieved full status as a physician at 18. He was physician to many leaders. In his last illness he had the Qur'an read to him. He was one of the greatest medical scholars in history. `
Ibn Sina
