Rhazes (860 A.D.- 923 or 932 A.D.; Iran)

Rhazes, also known as Ibn-Zakariya, al-Razi or Razi, was born in Rayy, Persia (now Iran) and was well known for his contributions to Islamic medicine. Rhazes was a Persian physician, philosopher and religious critic. While growing up, Rhazes received his medical education in Baghdad. Upon the completion of his formal education, Rhazes went on to practice medicine and direct hospitals in Rai and Baghdad.

As far as his medical skills went, it has been noted that Rhazes considered himself to be the Islamic version of Hippocrates. During his lifetime, Rhazes wrote many works and his writings went on to become required reading texts for both Islamic and European students in training to become physicians. Of all of his works, Rhazes' most important medical works were entitled, Kitah al-Mansuri and Kitah al-hawi, the latter when translated means the Comprehensive Book. This book served as a compilation of Greek, Syrian and early Arabic medicine. Some Indian medical knowledge was also contained within the book. In addition to these major works, one of Rhazes' most famous smaller works was Treatise on the Small Pox and Measles in which Rhazes wrote about these diseases that Hippocrates had not described. As a trademark of all of his books, dispersed throughout Rhazes wrote in commentaries based upon his own medical experiences. In addition to his writings in the medical field, Rhazes has also been credited with being the first to use animal gut for sutures and plaster of Paris for casts.

In the field of alchemy, Rhazes' greatest work was an alchemical study on an ethical treatise entitled, The Spiritual Physick of Rhazes. During the 12th century, Rhazes' works were translated form Arabic to Latin (Britannica, 9:967, 1994; Encyclopedia Americana, 8;463, 18:627-628, 1991 and Barba, p. 67, 1995).