Quarantine and isolation: ways to combat covid-19

Er. Adil Hussain Rather

Who saves one human life, It’s as if he has saved all all Humen kind.                                                                                                                                                                                           Modern high tech advances in medicines and health are ofcourse the results of many centuries of the developments with research and experimentation. Much of which took place in Islamic world between 9th and 14th centuries. The Islamic scholars during this time made huge contribution to the modern world and created body of knowledge tremendously important ,influential around the world. During this time medicines are treated to be the true science with emphasis and empherical evidences & repeated procedures.
The greatest philosopher , scientist of Islam Ibn Sina also known as Abu Ali Sina and often known in the west as Avicenna . He was a Persian polymath who is regarded as one of the most significant physicians, astronomers, thinkers and writers of the Islamic Golden Age, and the father of early modern medicine. Avicenna is also called “the most influential philosopher of the pre-modern era”. He was a peripatetic philosopher influenced by Aristotelian philosophy. He was born on 980 in Afshana, a village near Bukhara ( Uzbekistan), the capital of the Samanids, a Persian dynasty in Central Asia and Greater Khorasan and lived in the central historical atmosphere in which the genius Rudaki , Firdowsi, Abu Bakar Razi, Abu Mahmud khujendi, Al Farabi and Al Biruni was formed and flourished. According to his autobiography, Avicenna had memorized the entire Quran by the age of 10. He turned to medicine at 16, and not only learned medical theory, but also by gratuitous attendance of the sick had, according to his own account, discovered new methods of treatment. The teenager achieved full status as a qualified physician at age 18, and found that “Medicine is no hard and thorny science, like mathematics and metaphysics, so he soon made great progress; he became an excellent doctor and began to treat patients, using approved remedies.” The youthful physician’s fame spread quickly, and he treated many patients without asking for payment. His most famous works are The Book of Healing, a philosophical and scientific encyclopedia, and The Canon of Medicine, a medical encyclopedia which became a standard medical text at many medieval universities.
An Exemplary Scientist’ published in ‘the fountain’ authors Ihsan Ali / Ahmet Guclu quoted, Richard Colgan’s book ‘Advice to the Young Physician’ published from New York, in which the author wrote: “Ibn Sina (known as Avicenna in Latin and in the West) in his masterpiece The Canon of Medicine (United States National Library of Medicine, MS A 53) states that “Body secretions of a host organism (e.g., human being) are contaminated by tainted foreign organisms that are not visible by naked eye before the infection.” Let’s paraphrase this millennium-old statement as “Infections are caused by the contamination of body secretions of host organisms by foreign tainted microorganisms.” It is quite impressive that this definition is almost the same definition we use today for infections and more importantly that Ibn Sina hypothesized on the existence of microorganisms. Ibn Sina went even further to hypothesize that microbial diseases (e.g. tuberculosis) could be contagious and that those who are infected should be quarantined. Let’s briefly review the discovery of microorganisms and be further astonished with the intuition and vision of the “Father of Early Modern Medicine”. The authors further quoted Robert Koch’s book ‘A Life in Medicine and Bacteriology’ published from Washington, D.C. which read: “In the seventeenth century, nearly seven centuries after Ibn Sina, the Dutch scientist Anton van Leeuwenhoek (also referred to as the “Father of Microbiology”) observed microorganisms under a microscope (van Leeuwenhoek 1980). With his fundamental discovery, he showed that there were living organisms that were not visible to the naked eye. What van Leeuwenhoek did not realize was that these microorganisms (e.g. pathogen: a disease causing microbe) could actually be the cause of infections. This is contrary to the discoveries made by Ibn Sina seven centuries earlier that microorganisms could be the cause of infections despite the extremely limited evidence for the existence of microorganisms at the time. Nearly two centuries after Leeuwenhoek’s first observation of microorganisms, in 1876, Robert Koch, a German physician, postulated that microorganisms could actually be the cause of infection and therefore disease by his fundamental observation that the blood of an infected animal that contained pathogenic bacteria that, when transferred to a healthy animal caused the recipient animal to become sick”,. To prevent human-to-human contamination . He came up with a method of isolating people for 40 days and called it “Al Arba-iniya” (the forty) . Latter traders from venance heard his successful and took the knowledge back to contemporary Italy ,called it “quarantena” (the forty in Italian). Now days it’s called Quarantine.
Today, the world is suffering from quarantine to get rid of this pestilence . Measures are implemented to contain and prevent the transmission of an infectious disease. It will last enough time for medical personnel to assess the situation or for the duration of the contagious period. So it’s responsibility for everyone of us to be quarantine at home to break the chain and make our society clean against covid-19. Increasing no. Of cases people should be self quarantine as a precaution. Not everyone, however is taking self quarantine seriously. Putting several people’s health at risk. It’s good to be self quarantine at home and avoid contact with other people, stopping yourself from work, taking public transport running, errands or having visitors. Keep upto date with news related to virus, take advise from health officials and administration.