Kitab al-Hawi and On Smallpox and Measles
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A hospital physician keeps case notes, distinguishes smallpox from measles by watching how each presents, and says plainly where Galen's observations do not match his own.
- clinical case notes recorded, including treatments that failed
- two diseases separated by observed course rather than by theory
- explicit disagreement with Galen on the basis of new observation
- medicine argued to be cumulative rather than settled
The Hawi is a vast posthumous compilation of al-Razi's reading and his own clinical notes, quoting authorities and then recording what he saw in particular patients, including failures. His monograph on smallpox and measles separates two diseases that had been treated as one, by the course each takes rather than by fitting them into humoral theory, and it is the earliest such clinical differentiation to survive. He also wrote a book of doubts about Galen, arguing that medicine advances and that reverence for a predecessor is no reason to ignore contrary evidence.
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