Ibn Masawayh

Yuhanna ibn Masawaih (circa 777–857), , also written Ibn Masawaih, Masawaiyh, and in Latin Janus Damascenus, or Mesue, Masuya, Mesue Major, Msuya, and Mesuë the Elder was a Persian physician, trained by Jabril ibn Bukhtishu, who was a member of the Church of the East, from the Academy of Gondishapur. According to The Canon of Medicine for Avicenna and Uyun al-Anba for the medieval Arab historian ibn Abi Usaybi'a, Masawaiyh's father was from Khuzestan and his mother was a Slav.

Life

Born in 777 as the son of a pharmacist and physician from Gundeshapur, he came to Baghdad and studied under Jabril ibn Bukhtishu. He translated various Greek medical works into Syriac, but wrote his own work in Arabic. Apes were supplied to him by Caliph al-Mu'tasim for dissection.

Many anatomical and medical writings are credited to him, notably the Disorder of the Eye (Daghal al-ʿayn), which is the earliest systematic treatise on ophthalmology extant in Arabic, and The Aphorisms, the Latin translation of which was very popular in the Middle Ages.

He died in Samarra in 857.