Nur al-Din hospital-school (al-Nuri bimaristan)
Hospital-escuela Nur al-Din (bimaristán al-Nuri)
- Date
- 1154 · confidence medium
- Place
- Damascus, Syria
- Credited to
- Nur al-Din Zengi
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A hospital founded in Damascus with wards, a pharmacy, library and lecture hall, where medicine was taught at the bedside. It operated for more than eight centuries and trained physicians such as Ibn al-Nafis.
It is usually dated to 1154, after Nur al-Din's conquest of Damascus, though some sources give 1156-1159. The building is now the Museum of Medicine and Science. This is the institution, not the first Islamic hospital.
What it led to
- systematic clinical teaching in the medieval Levant
- a model for Mamluk hospitals (Qalawun in Cairo)
- preservation of medical manuscripts until the 19th century