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The Kitāb al-Taṣrīf (), Surgery for Gynecomastia in the Islamic Golden Age: Al-Tasrif of Al-Zahrawi (936–1013 AD) known in English as The Method of Medicine, is a 30-volume Arabic encyclopedia on medicine and surgery, written near the year 1000 by al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis). It is available in translation. The took al-Zahrawi over 50 years to complete. It contains information about a wide variety of illnesses, injuries, medical conditions, treatments, and surgical procedures. It describes over 200 different surgical instruments. Surgeons continued to rely on the well into the 1700s.
Al-Zahrawi claims that his knowledge comes from careful reading of previous medical texts as well as his own experience: “…whatever skill I have, I have derived for myself by my long reading of the books of the Ancients and my thirst to understand them until I extracted the knowledge of it from them. Then through the whole of my life I have adhered to experience and practice…I have made it accessible for you and rescued it from the abyss of prolixity”.Abū Al-Qāsim Khalaf Ibn ʾabbās Al-Zahrāwī. Albucasis on Surgery and Instruments. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. (676)
In the beginning of his book, al-Zahrawi states that the reason for writing this treatise was the degree of underdevelopment surgery had reached in the Islamic world, and the low status it was held by the physicians at the time. Al-Zahrawi ascribed such decline to a lack of anatomical knowledge and a misunderstanding of the human physiology.
Noting the importance of anatomy, he wrote:Selin, Helaine (2008). Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer Science & Business Media. p. 1545.
Innovative surgical techniques discussed by al-Zahrawi in the volume include crushing bladder stones with a sort of lithotrite he called "michaab", and using forceps for extracting a dead fetus.Ingrid Hehmeyer and Aliya Khan (2007). "Islam's forgotten contributions to medical science", Canadian Medical Association Journal 176 (10). The text also contains a number of innovations in dentistry, including using gold and silver wires to ligate loosened teeth,Becker, Marshall Joseph; Turfa, Jean MacIntosh (2017). The Etruscans and the History of Dentistry: The Golden Smile Through the Ages. Taylor & Francis. p. 146. extracting and replanting teeth, and scaling the calculus from the teeth to prevent periodontal disease.Andrews, Esther K. (2007). Practice Management for Dental Hygienists. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins. p. 6."Abu al-Qasim, also known as Abulcasis, wrote an encyclopedia of medicine and surgery (al-Tasrif) that is now kept at Oxford University. His unique contribution to dentistry reported the relationship between calculus and periodontal disease. He promoted prevention by recommending scaling calculus above and below the gums until all accretions were removed even if it takes multiple visits."
Al-Zahrawi depicted over 200 surgical instruments, some of which he created himself. Instruments in the al-Tasrif include different kinds of scalpels, retractors, , pincers, specula, and also instruments designed for his favoured techniques of cauterization and ligature. He also invented hooks with a double tip for use in surgery.
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