ʿAlī ibn ʿĪsā al-Kahhal () ( fl. 1010 AD), surnamed "the oculist" (''al-kahhal'') was the best known and most celebrated

Arab The Arabs (singular: Arab; singular ar, عَرَبِيٌّ, DIN 31635: , , plural ar, عَرَب, DIN 31635: , Arabic pronunciation: ), also known as the Arab people, are an ethnic group mainly inhabiting the Arab world in Western Asia, ...

ophthalmologist of

medieval Islam The Islamic Golden Age was a period of cultural, economic, and scientific flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 14th century. This period is traditionally understood to have begun during the reign ...

. He was known in medieval Europe as Jesu Occulist, a Latin translation of his name. He was the author of the influential ''Tadhkirat al-kahhalin'', sometimes translated as ''Memorandum of the Oculists'', the most comprehensive Arabic ophthalmology book to survive from the medieval era. The work was based on the writings of

Hunayn ibn Ishaq Hunayn ibn Ishaq al-Ibadi (also Hunain or Hunein) ( ar, أبو زيد حنين بن إسحاق العبادي; (809–873) was an influential Nestorian Christian translator, scholar, physician, and scientist. During the apex of the Islamic ...

Galen Aelius Galenus or Claudius Galenus ( el, Κλαύδιος Γαληνός; September 129 – c. AD 216), often Anglicized as Galen () or Galen of Pergamon, was a Greek physician, surgeon and philosopher in the Roman Empire. Considered to be one ...

, and other earlier authors and described in detail the anatomy and diseases of the eye, along with treatments and remedies for those diseases. Ibn 'Isa also included illustrations of eye anatomy within the work. It was the standard resource on ophthalmology in its time. Ibn 'Isa described and suggested treatment for an array of ocular diseases. He was the first to describe the symptoms of Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada syndrome. Ibn 'Isa classified epiphora as a result of overzealous cautery of pterygium, and suggested treatments for epiphora based on the stage of the disease – namely treatment in the early stages with astringent materials like ammonia salt, burned copper, or lid paste and a hook dissection with a feathered quill for chronic stages of epiphora. Other surgical operations were also described in the book. He may have recorded a case of temporal arteritis in his ''Tadhkirat''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ali ibn Isa al-Kahhal Opticians of the medieval Islamic world 11th-century physicians Oculists Physicians of the medieval Islamic world 11th-century Arabs