2008/10/10 by John B. West · 4 citations
Arts and Humanities · Physics and Astronomy · #History of Medicine Studies #Historical Astronomy and Related Studies #Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies
paper · doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.91171.2008
openalex publication_date 2008/10/10 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Ibn al-Nafis (1213-1288) was an Arab physician who made several important contributions to the early knowledge of the pulmonary circulation. He was the first person to challenge the long-held contention of the Galen School that blood could pass through the cardiac interventricular septum, and in keeping with this he believed that all the blood that reached the left ventricle passed through the lung. He also stated that there must be small communications or pores (manafidh in Arabic) between the pulmonary artery and vein, a prediction that preceded by 400 years the discovery of the pulmonary capillaries by Marcello Malpighi. Ibn al-Nafis and another eminent physiologist of the period, Avicenna (ca. 980-1037), belong to the long period between the enormously influential school of Galen in the 2nd century, and the European scientific Renaissance in the 16th century. This is an epoch often given little attention by physiologists but is known to some historians as the Islamic Golden Age. Its importance is briefly discussed here.