The Physician (1986)

This book is a fascinating convergence of history, religion and medicine, following Rob Cole's journey from orphan to training in the middle east as a physician. I highly recommend this read. ( )

Mayores de 18 años

SITUADA LA ACCIÓN EN EL SIGLO XI, ROB QUEDA HUÉRFANO Y ES RECOGIDO POR UN CIRUJANO BARBERO CON EL QUE RECORRE INGLATERRA, APRENDIENDO LA PROFESIÓN. POCO A POCO APARECE SU VOCACIÓN MÉDICA, Y AL MORIR EL BARBERO, DECIDE APRENDER MEDICINA EMIGRANDO HACIA PERSIA, SE HACE PASAR POR JUDÍO Y CONSIGUE INGRESAR EN LA ESCUELA DE AVICENA, BAJO SU PROTECCIÓN OBTIENE SU TÍTULO. A LA MUERTE DE SU MAESTRO Y DEL SHA DE PERSIA, REGRESA CON SU FAMILIA A LONDRES, Y POR ÚLTIMO SE ESTABLECE EN GALES. ( )

The Physician describes the journey of an eleventh century Englishman to become a healer. Rob Cole starts by learning how to become a barber-surgeon. He yearns to become a physician and sets a goal to study with: “The outstanding physician in the world. Avicenna, whose Arab name is Abu Ali at-Husain ibn Abdullah ibn Sina.” To do so, he embarks on a journey across Europe to Persia. Along the way he encounters and adapts to Christian, Jewish, and Islamic cultures.

He learns effective study from the Jewish communities he interacts with.
“Rob read and studied his book and the Jews, behaving too much like the rest of them to stay a novelty. For six hours every day—three hours following the morning prayer service, which they called shaharit, and three hours after the evening service, ma’ariv —the study house was jammed, for most of the men studied before and after completing the day’s work by which they earned their living.”
(This really struck me, I often do a similar amount of study each day but not consistently…)

Eventually, Rob Cole reaches the medical school headed by the polymath ibn Sina and gains acceptance. He learns that he must gain a well-rounded education:
“You make a common error. If you have not studied philosophy, how can you reject it? Science and medicine teach of the body, while philosophy teaches of the mind and the soul, and a physician requires all these as he needs food and air. …. “You have the mind, for we see you grasp a new language, and we detect your promise in a dozen other ways. But you must not fear to allow learning to become a part of you, so that it is as natural as breathing. You must stretch your mind, wide enough to take in all we can give you.” …. Now he knew why God had given him a great, strong body and good eyes, for he taxed himself to the limit of his endurance as he sought to make himself a scholar.

He struggles and eventually succeeds in becoming a physician and scholar. Eventually, he is able to extend medical knowledge by breaking the taboo of dissection: “The ancients didn’t cripple their science with admonitions of sin, and what little we now know came from the early Greeks, who had the freedom to open the body and study it. They dissected the dead and observed how man is fashioned within. For a brief moment in those long-ago days their brilliance illuminated all of medicine, and then the world fell into darkness.”

Our physician continues his journey, both intellectually and geographically. I’ve just illustrated a few of the many points that captivated me while reading Noah Gordon’s complex historical novel. I highly recommend this book and hope the other two books in this trilogy are as interesting. ( )

The first in a series. It kept my attention while on an exercise bike. That earns it an extra half star that I can't fill in here! ( )