The Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon is a manuscript written in the 13th century by the Arab physician Ibn al-Nafis. The manuscript was discovered in 1924 in the archives of the Prussian State Library in Berlin, Germany. It contains the earliest descriptions of the coronary circulation and pulmonary circulation systems.
Contents
Latin translation
The manuscript was translated into Latin by the Italian physician Andrea Alpago, In 1520, Alpago returned to Padua with a Latin translation of the commentary, after living in the Arabian Peninsula for 30 years.
Reception
Here, Ibn Nafis described for the first time and in detail how the blood comes to the left ventricle not through the septum, but from the right ventricle (RV) through the pulmonary artery, lungs, and the pulmonary vein. He also first described the presence and function of the coronary circulation.
When he (Ibn al-Nafis) was only 29, he published his most important work, the Commentary on Anatomy in Avicenna's Canon, which included his ground-breaking views on the pulmonary circulation and heart