The Golden Age of Islam tends to be recognised most for its contributions to mathematics and astronomy. But The Royal College of Physicians’ major exhibition for 2013 reminds us it also ushered in huge advancements in another field: medicine.
‘The mirror of health’ pulls newly researched material from the college’s collection of rare thirteenth-century Islamic medical manuscripts, presented to the public for the very first time. Although Islamic medicine drew heavily on the ancient Greeks', the field’s practitioners made important original contributions of their own. This exhibition explores those innovations, drawing on advancements from the ninth to the seventeenth centuries.