• Ahmet Aciduman, Berna Arda, Cağatay Aşkit, Deniz Belen, and Kemal Tuzcu.
• Department of History of Medicine and Ethics, Faculty of Medicine, Ankara University, Ankara, Turkey. Electronic address: aciduman@medicine.ankara.edu.
• World Neurosurg. 2014 Dec 1;82(6):e791-6.

ObjectiveTo present the text on hydrocephalus from Haly Abbas's book Kitāb al-Malikī / Liber Regius (The Royal Book), which was accepted as a classical textbook in the Eastern and Western worlds for a long time.MethodsThe Arabic (Süleymaniye Manuscript Library, Murad Molla Collection, Nr: 1482 and Būlāḳ, 1294 /1877) and the Latin (Venice, 1492) versions of the related chapter was translated and compared to create an English text. Additionally, relevant literature was reviewed in detail.ResultsThe text on hydrocephalus in Haly Abbas's The Royal Book virtually resembles Paul of Aegina's work. For hydrocephalic cases where the fluid collects between skin and pericranium, and pericranium and bone, Haly Abbas had made little change in surgical intervention; for the third type, skin incision, he preferred a T-type incision instead of an H-type. Like Paul of Aegina, Haly Abbas also did not advise any surgical intervention for the cases of hydrocephalus, where fluid accumulation is between bone and the dura mater.ConclusionsHaly Abbas's approach to hydrocephalus was as brave as that of his predecessors Antyllus, Oribasius, and Paulus, although the cases they dealt with were almost all cephalic hematomas. Although his chapter on the treatment of water accumulation in the head contains surgical interventions in extracranial hydrocephalic conditions, his account on hydrocephalus is extremely precise and gives adequate detail as in other chapters in his book.Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

13 keywords...

hide…