Journal of Applied Physiology AJP: Cell Physiology
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J Appl Physiol 105: 1877-1880, 2008. First published October 9, 2008; doi:10.1152/japplphysiol.91171.2008
8750-7587/08 $8.00
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HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Ibn al-Nafis, the pulmonary circulation, and the Islamic Golden Age

John B. West

Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, California

Submitted 2 September 2008 ; accepted in final form 2 October 2008

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.

interventricular septum; pulmonary capillaries; Galen; Avicenna; Malpighi; Islamic science; Arab medicine


Address for reprint requests and other correspondence: J. B. West, UCSD Dept. of Medicine 0623A, 9500 Gilman Dr., La Jolla, CA 92093-0623 (e-mail: jwest{at}ucsd.edu)






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