SULTANS OF SCIENCE

ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED

Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
1
The way in which the blood
circulates through the human body is basic to any
understanding of how we function.
The ancient Greeks thought that the liver produces
blood and that the blood was filled with natural
spirit when it came into contact with food in the
liver. They did recognize, however, that the heart
played an important role in pumping the blood
around the body.
HEART
LUNGS
RESPIRATORY
SYSTEM
BLOOD
CIRCULATION
The great Greek physician, Galen, who
worked in the second century CE, tried to
explain how the blood is pumped around
the body by suggesting that the venous
and arterial systems are separate but that
blood seeps through invisible pores from
the right to the left side of the heart,
where it comes in contact with air.
We now know that Galen was wrong and
that there is not a single blood circulation
system:
but a double circulation system:

The heart is the main blood pump, but it
first pumps the blood to the lungs, where
it is aerated, then back to the heart, and,
after that, to the rest of the body. The
blood returns to the heart via the venous
system.
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SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
2
Discovery by
Dr William Harvey
The famous English surgeon, Dr
William Harvey (1578-1657), is widely
recognized in the West as the discov-
erer of the double circulation system
of the blood. Harvey studied medicine
under Fabricius and Galileo in Italy
and at Cambridge in England. He was
a famous medical doctor who was the
private physician to the King of Eng-
land, James I. He published his theory
on the circulation of the blood in an
essay entitled The Motion of the
Heart and the Blood in 1628.
Discovery by Ibn an-Nafis
Ibn an-Nafis was a Muslim medical
scholar who was born in Damascus,
Syria, in 1210 and died in Cairo in 1288.
He was trained in the Nuri Hospital in
Damascus but spent most of his working
life in the famous Nasiri Hospital in Cairo,
Egypt. He was a very busy and influential
medical doctor who wrote several
authoritative books on healthy eating
and medical procedures.
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PULMONARY
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IBN AN-NAFIS
Blood from the right cham-
ber must flow to the lungs,
be mingled there with air,
pass through the pulmo-
nary vein to reach the left
chamber of the heart.
SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
3
Discovery of a book by Ibn an-Nafis
In 1924 a very important book was discovered in the Prussian State
Library in Berlin, Germany. The book was called Commentary on the
Anatomy of the Canon of Avicenna and was written by Ibn an-Nafis.
The book discussed the work of the famous Muslim scientist, Ibn Sina
(known in the West as Avicenna).
In this book, Ibn an-Nafis clearly
describes the double circulation of the
blood as we know it today, and states
that there are no perforations between
the left and right ventricles of the heart:
the blood from the right chamber
of the heart must arrive at the left cham-
ber, but there is no direct pathway
between them. The thick septum of the
heart is not perforated and does not
have visible pores as some people
thought or invisible pores as Galen
thought. The blood from the right cham-
ber must flow through the pulmonary
artery to the lungs, spread through its
substance, be mingled with air, pass
through the pulmonary vein to reach
the left chamber of the heart .
It is clear that Ibn an-Nafis thoroughly
understood the double circulation of
the blood over 730 years ago!
In one section of the book Ibn an-Nafis
disagrees with Ibn Sina, who stated that
the heart has three ventricles and that
blood seeps from one part of the heart to
the other (as proposed by Galen).
A medieval view of human anatomy
showing the blood circulation, from a
manuscript by the 14th century Persian
physician, Mansur ibn Ilyas.
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SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
4
Human Health Touch Wall display
Study the Human Health Touch Wall interactive display in the exhibition.
Touch the heart and read more about the discoveries of Ibn an-Nafis and
the double blood circulation system.
SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
5
Understanding the pulmonary-heart blood
circulation system
In the attached diagram a simplified scheme of the double blood circula-
tion system is shown. Label the following components of this diagram:
Check your labels against the diagram in
the Human Health Touch Wall display.
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SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
6
The pulmonary-heart
blood circulation system
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SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
7
Listen to your heart beat
Use the stethoscope attached to the Human Health
Touch Wall display to listen to your heart beat. A stetho-
scope is a medical instrument that is comprised of two
ear plugs (to put in your ears) and a tube connected to a
flat, sensor device (the chest piece) that has a sensitive
membrane that vibrates in response to your heart beat.
Place the sensor against the skin on
the left side of your chest under
your clothes you should be able
to hear your heart beating!
Listen to the pattern of your
heart beat you should
hear a double beat, which is
the sound of the two sets of
valves in your heart opening
and closing as they pump
blood to your lungs and
body.
SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
8
The average resting heart rate of a
newborn baby is 140 beats per
minute. As you grow older your
heart rate slows down to about
100 at age 4 and between 70 and
110 in older children, whereas the
average for an adult is 60-80 beats
per minute.
M D
BLOOD PRESSURE MONITOR
Maximum (systolic)
Blood Pressure
Minimum (diastolic)
Blood Pressure
Pulse Display
(Heart Rate)
140
bpm
100
bpm
70-
110
bpm
60-80
bpm
Now set a stop watch and count how many
times your heart beats every 60 seconds.
System
many mmany any
s. s. s.
Your heart rate varies as the bodys need to
absorb oxygen or excrete carbon dioxide
changes, such as during exercise or sleep.
USEFUL TIPS
You can use the stop
watch running on your
wrist watch or mobile
phone if it has one.
SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
9
Try to increase your heart rate
Now do some exercise, such as walking or running on the spot, or stepping up
and down stairs, and measure your heart rate again. Was it higher or lower?
Your heart rate tends to increase during or after exercise as your body needs
more oxygen, and there is more carbon dioxide to excrete.
Elite athletes have
heart rates that are
significantly lower
than those of normal
people. For instance,
the American cyclist,
Lance Armstrong, has
a resting heart rate of 32 beats
per minute (well below the aver-
age of 60-80 beats per minute).
The reason for this is that, partly
as a result of his intensive train-
ing, he has very strong heart.
? KNOW
DID YOU
When you breathe in, you create negative pressure
(a suction force) in your chest, and the blood is
partially sucked from your body into your heart.
When your heart is full of blood, the right side
pumps blood to your lungs while the left side
pumps blood to the rest of your body. Your blood
pressure is a measure of the pressure that your heart
is applying when it pumps blood through the body.
Next, breathe in deeply and listen
to your heart rate again. Then
breathe out, and listen. Did you
notice that the sound of your
heart beat changed slightly? Your
heart rate speeds up when you
breathe in and slows down when
you breathe out. The reason why
your heart rate changes when you
breathe is because the amount of
blood in your heart and the
pattern of closing of your two sets
of heart valves alters slightly when
you breathe in and out.
Breathing plays a very
important role in your
blood circulation.
SULTANS OF SCIENCE
ISLAMIC SCIENCE REDISCOVERED
Activity
Heart-Lung
Blood Circulation System
3
2011 MTE Studios
10
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If you cant use the real stethoscope, make one
yourself out of a flexible rubber or plastic tube.
Hold the one end against your ear and press the
other end firmly against the skin on the left side
of your chest. It wont work as well as a stetho-
scope, but you should be able to hear a faint
heart beat.
Alternatively, ask someone else to listen to your
heart rate using the cardboard inner tube of a
toilet roll. It works nearly as well. In Ibn
an-Nafis day they used a hollowed-out reed to
listen to the heart beat of their patients.
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LUNG
LEFT
LUNG
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Understanding how the blood circu-
lates through our bodies is a very
important medical discovery. We
now know that it was made by Ibn
an-Nafis over 350 years before Sir
William Harvey. It is also interesting
to know that the work of the early
Greek physician, Galen, would have
been lost to the modern world if it
had not been translated by Muslim
scholars into Arabic from the Greek,
as the original Greek books have
now all been lost. Later, Galens
work was translated from Arabic
into Latin and then into English so
that modern people in the West
could read it.