Rhazes: The Thinking Western Physician

The Dark Ages in Europe were a dismal atmosphere for methodical thought and its technological products. The barbarian hordes having overrun the Western Roman Empire, they destructed not merely the governmental and military structure of Classical civilization, but its cultural achievements as well. Few people in that dreary age would have exhibited basic literacy, not even to mention knowledge of ingenious Greek philosophers such as Aristotle or medical pioneers such as Hippocrates.

Few people today would have been exposed to the legacies of Europe's glorious antiquity were it not for the translations and scholarly extrapolations performed by Arabic researchers during the Middle East's golden age lingering from about the eighth to the twelfth centuries A.D. One of the most prodigious figures during this period of mini-Enlightenment was Abu Bakr Muhammad bin Zakaria al-Razi, better known as Rhazes. The endeavors undertaken by this man centuries ahead of his time served to popularize and expand the Scientific Method within the field of medicine as well as devise a system which in many aspects served as a philosophy of reason.