Canon of Medicine and drug testing rules

What it is

A systematic medical encyclopaedia including rules for testing drugs (dosage, comparison, reproducibility) and the contagiousness of diseases. The reference medical text for six centuries.

What it led to

• university medical teaching at Montpellier, Bologna and Paris until 1650
• the idea of quarantine and contagion
• an experimental drug-testing protocol

Built on

• Experimental anatomy and physiology (Galen)c. 170 CE
• Classification of chemical substances (al-Razi)c. 920
• al-Razi (Kitab al-Hawi)

Made possible

• Quarantine1377
• quarantine (Ragusa 1377)
• experimental pharmacology

Links