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Ibn Sīnā's Canon of Medicine

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For everyone

Ibn Sīnā's five-volume medical encyclopedia, the Canon, brought Greek, Indian and Islamic medicine into a systematic whole. It was translated into Latin and read as a core textbook in European universities until the 17th century. It also contains rules for the spread of contagious disease and for testing new drugs.

For specialists

The Canon rests on Galen's four-humour physiology and on Aristotelian causality. Seven rules in Book II for testing the effect of a drug require that the substance be pure, that it be tried on a simple (single-cause) disease, that the effect be reproducible and that it be tested on humans. Some historians regard these rules as a forerunner of clinical trials; the humoral theory the work uses is not compatible with modern physiology.

Claims

A drug's effect should be tested with the pure substance, on a single-cause disease, repeatedly and on humans.^[1][2]

Positions

Historians of medicine: Through its Latin translation (Gerard of Cremona, 12th century), the Canon held a central place in European medical education for centuries.^[3]

Connections

Parent

Medicine

Ibn Sīnā and the Book of Healing

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Sources

Classical workİbn Sina / Ibn Sīnā (1025). el-Kânûn fi't-Tıb (The Canon of Medicine), Book II. Arabic text printed at Bulaq, Cairo, 1877 (3 vols.)
Encyclopediael-Kânûn fi't-tıb. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisiislamansiklopedisi.org.tr archive
BookSiraisi, N. G. (1987). Avicenna in Renaissance Italy: The Canon and Medical Teaching in Italian Universities after 1500. Princeton University Press

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APA

Athena contributors. (2026). Ibn Sīnā's Canon of Medicine. Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/ibn-sina-kanun/

BibTeX

@misc{athena_ibn_sina_kanun,
  title        = {Ibn Sīnā's Canon of Medicine},
  author       = {{Athena contributors}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/ibn-sina-kanun/}},
  note         = {Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Accessed: 2026-11-01}
}

Added: September 27, 2026 · Last changed: September 27, 2026 · Page history

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