| Ibn al-Baitar was an Islamic Golden Age botanist and pharmacologist whose work was used by physicians for over 500 years after his death. Born in Malaga, Andalusia in Moorish Spain, he was trained in botany by a fellow Malagan botanist, Abu al-Abbad al-Nabati. Al-Nabati, a participant in the progressive Islamic Golden Age of medicine, developed an early scientific method that included forms of experimentation, empirical evidence, and peer-review. As al-Baitar learned from and collected plants with al-Nabati, he adopted these methods into his own botanical career. In 1219, he left Spain and traveled the North African coast, what is now the Middle East, and all the way up to modern day Turkey to collect and classify plants. His efforts did not go unnoticed, and by 1224 he was appointed chief herbalist to Ayyubid Sultan al-Kamil in Egypt. Al-Baitar wrote two extensive texts: Kitab al-mlughni fi al-adwiya almufrada (The Ultimate in Materia Medica), which discusses various drugs and their applications, and Kitab al-jami fi al-adwiya al-mufrada (Compendium on Simple Medicaments and Foods), which provides detailed descriptions and uses of 1,400 plants, drugs, and foods. The latter was used by physicians all the way up until at least the late 18th century. |
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