Talk:Al-Razi
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On the initial article
Quick note for the author of this page (and others) - great work, but it's not the done thing on the wikipedia to place one's name in an article text. This is because an article might get edited and/or expanded by anybody after you have worked on it, meaning it really would be "by" you any more. If you want people to know what you're responsible for, I'd suggest making a user account - then you can put a list of your pages on your user page if you like. Anyway, keep up the good work. --Camembert
I'm not sure about the copyright status of some material in this article, especially the quotes should be better acknowledged ([1] (http://www.geocities.com/rationalargumentator/Rhazes.html)). I'm also not sure about the copyright status of the picture. -- till we *) 19:33, Aug 9, 2003 (UTC)
Resectioning
To all:
- I have tried to reformat the article according to the Wikipedia standards, chiefly by adding one "=" to the level of all sections.
- However, I used "*" instead of "====" for the sub-sub-sections (commentaries on individual books), because the document's structure seemed clearer that way. On my browser "====" looks just like "===". (Of course that may be a fluke of my browser/fonts combination.) The drawback is that editing an individual book commentary is not possible. Perhaps the old format was better after all...
- The commentary on Razi's medical work is quite extensive, perhaps even too detailed for an encyclopedia article. On the other hand, the commentary on his chemical work, which was perhaps even more important, is too skimpy. Perhaps someone with more knowledge of chemistry would be willing to provide the details of his discovery of sulphuric acid and alcohol? (Based on half-remembered sources, I guess that the former was by distillation of vitriol; but that is little more than a guess.)
- Ditto for the =Biography= section (currently one small paragraph...)
- The Arabic /Persian title of Al-Hawi in the list of medical books looks strange. Could it be vandalism?
- The full list of book titles could perhaps be moved to a separate article, "list of al-Razi's books". That would avoid the huge gaps between sections and make the text flow more naturally.
I am doen for today. All the best,
Jorge Stolfi 23:35, 16 May 2004 (UTC)
Article name
Surely this page is not named in accordance with Wikipedia rules. Shouldn't it be at Al-Razi, or some such? john k 21:20, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- I suppose so. However, since full names are often used in order to disambiguate homonyms, it is not a hard and fast rule, is it? As long as there is a redirect...
Jorge Stolfi 22:38, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Are there any other people named Al-Razi? If not, he should go there. Just as we have articles at Avicenna and Averroes rather than Abu Ali al-Husain ibn Abdallah ibn Sina and Abu Al-Walid Muhammad Ibn Ahmad Ibn Rushd. john k 23:27, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Is there any objection to a move to Al-Razi? john k 05:49, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Fine with me. But would you please also move Abu Musa Jabir Ibn Hayyan to Geber? I can't do it because there is already a redirect there...Thanks.
Jorge Stolfi 06:14, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
More fixes
Some fixes:
- Changed "Iranian" to "Persian". As far as I know, "Iran" is a modern name. (Cf. Julius Caesar — usually said to be "Roman" not "Italian").
- Restored the sentence about alcohol. From the sources I have seen, Al-Razi is indeed credited with the discovery of alcohol (meaning ethanol - as opposed to alcoholic beverages, which of course were pre-historical). Or, at least, he was the first who described its preparation (which presumably is what counts). Is that claim contested? BTW, as far as I know "alcohol" derives from Arabic for "spirit".
- Merged the footnotes into the text (footnote 3 apparently was not anchored anywhere).
Jorge Stolfi 22:38, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Alcohol discovery
- It would probably be best to state exactly what Al-Razi was credited doing first. It wouldn't have been discovering alcohol or even the preparation of alcohol, since ancient distillers must have done that, too. Was he the first to identify ethanol as the intoxicating component of alcoholic beverages, or the first to describe how to prepare pure ethanol? It's probably necessary to specify ethanol, since alcohol is ambiguous in English. (By the way, Merriam-Webster Online says the word is derived from Arabic al-kuhul, "the powdered antimony". Seems like there's an etymological link missing, or at least an interesting story.) In any case, on en:wikipedia, it shouldn't have the connotation in English that he first did something that has obviously been done for millenia. I'd supply a better phrasing myself, but I don't know exactly what Al-Razi did. -- Jeff Q 23:54, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
What "ancient distillers" are those? I have never heard of distilled beverages in ancient Greece or Rome, or anywhere else before the era of the Islamic alchemists. (They had wine and beer, of course.) Jorge Stolfi 03:13, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- It seems that Geber already knew about alcohol (at least as a flammable gas that escaped from bottles of boiling wine). So presumably Al-Razi was the first to condense the product? Jorge Stolfi 06:15, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Ah, I am hoist by my own petard! "Distillers" was probably the wrong word. I was responding to your statement that Al-Razi "was the first who described [alcohol's] preparation". My thought was that, unless people before the 10th century C.E. found their ethanol-based beverages lying around in puddles, many people must have been preparing it for millenia. ☺ But distallation is a more specific means of ethanol preparation. Is this what Al-Razi discovered and/or invented? If so, that would eliminate the ambiguity. (BTW, I replaced your bullet above with an indent colon, because bullets screw up talk page formatting in this wonderful new style the Wiki Powers That Be have forced upon us. Please pardon the edit.) -- Jeff Q 17:35, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
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Also, it would be interesting to know if al-Razi had any idea of the antiseptic qualities of alcohol. If so, and if we can find a reliable source, we should make not of it both in this article and the article on Joseph Lister. --dws 4/25/2005
Alcohol etymology
((moved to Talk:alcohol Jorge Stolfi 03:33, 15 Jun 2004 (UTC)))
Sulfuric acid
There is something fishy about the sulfuric acid story. This article claims that Al-Razi discovered H2SO4, and then Geber used it to discover HCl, HNO3, and aqua regia. However, according to the dates in Wikipedia, Geber died about 50 years before Al-Razi was born. What is the real story?
Jorge Stolfi 06:14, 13 Jun 2004 (UTC)
- Seems to me that that part of the article is incorrectly stating that Razi's work "paved the way for Geber". Geber's article also indicates that Geber's discoveries "paved the way for Razi"!! Obviously Razi could not have paved the way for Geber (unless the author of the article meant Pseudo-Geber) so it seems that the "Razi paved the way for Geber" part must be removed. --K1 10:25, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Yes, I just added that part in the Geber article, after reading a document on the net about the discovery of alcohol that seems authoritative and has detailed quotes of observations by Geber and other Arab alchemists. I will take out that line about Geber, but now I am unsure about whether he indeed was the frist to prepare ethanol, or whether credit should go to someone else, possibly just after Geber's . (The one above does not even mention Al-Razi, but perhaps it was due to nationalistic prejudice.)
The H2SO4 problem is even more urgent, since Geber is supposed to have used the stuff to make other acids. However, perhaps Geber did not use H2SO4, but distilled a mixture of salt and viriol, which I suppose would have generated HCl directly. Ditto for HNO3. Then perhaps Al-Razi distilled vitriol alone and got H2SO4.
Pseudo-Geber does not seem relevant, he was too late. Surely the distillation of spirits was already well known by then, even in Europe. (BTW, it seems that by the 16th century the distillation of ethanol was a very popular research topic of European alchemists. I wonder why... 8-)
Jorge Stolfi 14:21, 14 Jun 2004 (UTC)
2 questions
- "Razi always used a natural approach when treating ill patients"
- What exactly does this mean? Can you elaborate perhaps?
- Why exactly did Abu contradict that a Muslim priest (or mullah?) got so angry as to have his head smashed in? That is quite a severe punishment, and inspires curiosity as to the nature of the offense. [[User:Sam Spade|Sam Spade Arb Com election]] 18:02, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)
al-Hawi anecdote
The Wikipedia article says:
- A Muslim priest, whom Razi had apparently contradicted somewhere in its pages, ordered that Razi be beaten over the head with the [al-Hawi] manuscript until one of them broke. Razi's head broke first, and the result was permanent blindness for Razi.
The NIH (http://www.nlm.nih.gov/hmd/arabic/E2_E4.html#E4) website says:
- The most sought after of all the compositions by al-Razi (Rhazes to Europeans) was his Comprehensive Book on Medicine (Kitab al-Hawi fi al-tibb). It was not a formal medical encyclopedia, but rather was assembled posthumously from Razi's working files of readings and personal observations. [My emphasis.]
Razi's "manuscript" was not assembled until after his death. Yet a "Muslim priest" orders that he be beaten over the head with it? What is wrong with this picture?? It's also suspicious that the Muslim priest is not named, thereby making the story all the more difficult to verify.
Do we have a reference for the head beating story?
--Susurrus 05:48, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Or what about this?
- His medical career was cut short by his major work, the Kitab al-Hawi fi al-tibb, or "The Comprehensive Book on Medicine", commonly referred to as "al-Hawi". [Followed by the head-beating story.]
- Razi suffered failing eyesight for several years, and though he eventually lost all vision he continued to provide medical consultations and often even lectured.
The first person to spot the contadiction wins a teddy bear.
We NEED a reference for this head-beating story. I have performed a quick Google search for a reference. The whole first page of references to that story are all different versions of this Wikipedia article—never a good sign. I have already quoted the dubious material in full above. I therefore see fit to delete it from the article in the absence of any voiced dissent.
--Susurrus 23:25, 30 Nov 2004 (UTC)
A citing of the head beating story appears in "A Prelude to Medical History" by Felix Marti-Ibaņez on p. 112. The book was published in back 1961. This obviously predates the Wikipedia article a bit, but unfortunately the book doesn't give a source for the story. Hope this helps in some way.
Three categories of diseases?
- He further classified diseases into three categories: those that are curable, those that can be cured, and those that are incurable.
What is the difference between the first two categories, please?? I think this passage needs reworking...
--Susurrus 05:47, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)