By far the most famous of the Arabo-Islamic surgeons, however, is al-Zahrāwī, known in the Western literature as Albucasis, Abulcasis, Bucasis (Latinized forms of his Arabic kunya, or cognomen, ‘Abū l-Qāsim’). He was an innovative surgeon who added many original contributions to surgery and medicine. His main work bears the rather long rhyming title The Arrangement of Medical Knowledge for One Who is Not Able to Compile a Book Himself (Kitāb al-Taṣrīf li-man ʿajiza ʿan al-taʾlīf. It consists of thirty treatises and represents an encyclopaedia of medicine and surgery. The thirtieth treatise (maqāla) is further divided into three books: book one ‘on cauterization’; book two ‘on incision, perforation, and venesection, and wounds and the like’; and book three ‘on bone-setting’...
Left: Surgical instruments from Fusṭāṭ (Old Cairo), 9th century.