Therefore in medicine we ought to know the causes of sickness and health.
Interpretation
Understanding the causes of illness and wellness is essential in medicine.
Avicenna emphasizes the importance of comprehending the underlying causes of both sickness and health in the field of medicine. This perspective encourages a holistic approach to healthcare where physicians not only treat symptoms but also seek to understand the root causes of ailments to promote true healing.
In practice
During a medical conference, a speaker quoted Avicenna to highlight the need for preventative measures in healthcare.
Now it is established in the sciences that no knowledge is acquired save through the study of its causes and beginnings, if it has had causes and beginnings; nor completed except by knowledge of its accidents and accompanying essentials.
Is it the fault of wine if a fool drinks it and goes stumbling into darkness?
As to the mental essence, we find it in infants devoid of every mental form.
An ignorant doctor is the aide-de-camp of death.
It is in the nature of water ... to become transformed into earth through a predominating earthy virtue; ... it is in the nature of earth to become transformed into water through a predominating aqueous virtue.
Those who have learned to walk on the threshold of the unknown worlds, by means of what are commonly termed par excellence the exact sciences, may then, with the fair white wings of imagination, hope to soar further into the unexplored amidst which we live.
To understand a science it is necessary to know its history.
Imagine a survivor of a failed civilization with only a tattered book on aromatherapy for guidance in arresting a cholera epidemic. Yet, such a book would more likely be found amid the debris than a comprehensible medical text.
Climate Change is a national security issue. We found that climate instability will lead to instability in geopolitics and impact American military operations around the world. People are saying they want to be perfectly convinced about climate science projections. But speaking as a soldier, we never have 100 percent certainty. If you wait until you have 100 percent certainty, something bad is going to happen on the battlefield.
If the rate of expansion one second after the Big Bang had been smaller by even one part in a hundred thousand million million, it would have recollapsed before it reached its present size. On the other hand, if it had been greater by a part in a million, the universe would have expanded too rapidly for stars and planets to form.
...great difficulties are felt at first and these cannot be overcome except by starting from experiments .. and then be conceiving certain hypotheses ... But even so, very much hard work remains to be done and one needs not only great perspicacity but often a degree of good fortune.
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