Talk:Medicine in the medieval Islamic world

There

There was a large section that I just deleted regarding "Honey" - the whole thing seemed to be pretty inappropriate for this article User:Gil-Galad 9 June 2006

Vandalism

This page appears to be a target of a few vandals, if it continues it may need to be protected. Cartwarmark 21:39, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

What to call this article

Islamic medicine is not the best name, because it implies that the discoveries made by the early arabs is somehow "islamic", which is a big POV. I origionally proposed Early Arabic medicine, but that was later changed to muslim medicine. Now we are back to the origional title. So, I throw the question at those who changed it. Which title is the best?--Sefringle 01:45, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Your page move was inappropriate on 4 grounds:

1. You just moved the article w/o any discussion whatsoever. ---> Wikipedia:Requested moves
2. Your new title was inappropriate as the most notable physician in the article was not arab at all. ---> Al-Razi

Rolex was established in London by a German watchmaker. Yet we still refer to it as "Swiss." Most Islamic contributions came from the arab-dominated regions (e.g. islamic Spain, Egypt and Iraq) especially Baghdad where Al-Razi worked. Thus I don't think there is a problem with calling the article "Arabic Medicine." But I think a "Islamic Medicine" is fine title. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.82.194.166 (talk) 14:16, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

1. "Islamic medicine" doesn't necessarily mean that it "implies that the discoveries made by the early arabs is somehow "islamic"". It implies medicine developed/researched during the Islamic scientist development era. There weren't only arabs who contributed to that! ---> Hindu medicine
2. You are asking people the same question you should have asked yourselves in first place. -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 02:00, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I origionally tried to move it through WP:RM [1], User:Stemonitis said the result was no consensus dispite the lack of objections, but later said the I could move it if I wanted to:[2]. Second, the title does imply the subject is "islamic." It implies that there is something within Islam that caused these discoveries. That is why maybe "muslim" was more appropiate, but I think their could be a better title.--Sefringle 02:11, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

He said you could move it and it was on another article where no one objected. It may mean that no one had the opportunity to comment as you requested it at 03:29, 23 March 2007 (UTC) while he closed it at 10:16, 29 March 2007 (UTC). People were sleeping, playing w/ their kind? Here you followed an advice based on other circumstances. Here you were reverted.

I have no objections w/ "muslim". -- FayssalF - ^{Wiki me up®} 02:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

I object to the move. If we have a look at the references and external links we see that be have:

• Edward G. Browne, Islamic Medicine, 2002, Goodword Pub., ISBN 81-87570-19-9
• Manfredd Ullman. Islamic Medicine, 1978, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0852243251.
• Peter E. Pormann and Emilie Savage-Smith, Medieval Islamic Medicine, 2007, Edinburgh University Press, ISBN 0748620664.
• Islamic Medical Manuscripts at the National Library of Medicine

This seems to be the most common name. —Ruud 10:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Though what is the topic of this article? It does not discuss how any medicine is Islamic, meaning a part of the religion of Islam. It discusses the medicinal discoveries of muslims. Muslim medicine is thus more appropiate.--Sefringle 03:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The adjective "Islamic" refers to the Islamic civilization and in no way is meant to imply the medicine itself is in some way Islamic. In fact, I find that the name "Muslim medicine" implies an even stronger connection to Islam (whcih I believe is what you want to prevent.) However, your reply doesn't in anyway refute my argument that "Islamic medicine" is the WP:COMMONNAME of this subject. —Ruud 19:11, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I dont think medieval Islam ever existed. You can say Ancient Islam, or old Islamic Scriptures, but im not sure about medieval.

changes

first the removal of the phrase saying islamic science marked the begining of microbiology. Thats has been removed since at most muslim scientists did was speculate that bacteria may exist, and mind you they had absolutely no clue to what the correst idea of microbes where. So why the removal, simple, merely speculating on something does not constitute the beginning of that field of science, that be like saying greeks and indians initiated atomic theory, since they speculated matter is made of atoms, even they could not prove it and that there theorie were absolutely wrong and philisophical in nature. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.36.181.171 (talk) 09:57, 9 February 2008 (UTC)

Smallpox vaccine

Can anybody verify reference 68 (Paul Vallely, How Islamic Inventors Changed the World, The Independent, 11 March 2006.)? The referred text is: "12 ... Children in Turkey were vaccinated with cowpox to fight the deadly smallpox at least 50 years before the West discovered it." If not, this reference, together with the sentence "This was later followed by the first smallpox vaccine in the form of cowpox, invented in Turkey in the early 18th century." should be removed from the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.2.123.224 (talk) 19:40, 4 October 2008 (UTC)

• Ftory told on [3]--Ashashyou (talk) 17:47, 7 December 2008 (UTC)
• Also [4] states that "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey, observed this third method in the early 1700s and brought it back to England. Although the effects of variolation varied, ranging from causing a mild illness in most individuals to causing death in a few, the mortality and morbidity rates due to smallpox were certainly lower in populations that used variolation than in those that did not.

One person who experienced variolation as a child in the late 1700s was Edward Jenner, a young boy who survived the process and grew up to become a country doctor in England. As a country doctor, Jenner noticed a relationship between the equine disease known as "grease" and a bovine disease known as cow pox."--Ashashyou (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• Also [5] states that "In 1717 the germ theory of disease, in particular, being the unconscious offspring of the ancient Eastern faith in specific demons, each possessed of his own special weapon of malignity. Thus the smallpox inoculation introduced into England from Turkey by Lady Mary Wortley Montague in the eighteenth century [1717] and its substitute of cowpox inoculation were based on the ancient Indian rite of subjecting people to an artificially induced attack of smallpox to propitiate Sheetula-Mata, the goddess of that torment." This confirms that Turkey was the route of transfer of knowledge about vaccination to the western civilization then to the whole world. --Ashashyou (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• Also [6] states that "Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the wife of the British Ambassador to Turkey and who had once survived smallpox, had her children treated and brought the ideas back to Britain, where research began on how to reduce the inoculation's sometimes-awful side effects."--Ashashyou (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

• [7] state that "In 1717 inoculation against smallpox instituted in England by Lady Mary Montague after she returns from Turkey, where it was in a popular experimental stage at the time."--Ashashyou (talk) 17:35, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

WPMED assessment

WPMED does not have a process for identifying articles as A class. It also does not consider historical information to be one of the most important articles on Wikipedia for this project, which focuses primarily on diseases, medical conditions, and their treatment. I ask that the assessment for WPMED be left as I have set it. If you disagree with it, then please actually read the project's assessment guide here and post a request at the end of that page for reassessment.

Modern day section

Should Medicine in medieval Islam include a "Modern contributions" section? Orpheus (talk) 05:02, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

The modern day section should probably include research regarding the hsitory of Medicine in medieval Islam since the 1900s. Such as how such a notion was regarded mostly non-existent in western lay thought. And aye modern medical contributions should be removed. Faro0485 (talk) 06:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

This is a no-brainer. The 'modern contributions' section appears to basically be a puff piece for Muslim scientists to claim how great their research is. This should be a totally different article, if it needs to exist at all. Famousdog (talk) 10:08, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

Islamic teachings

medicine in medieval Islam was triggered by Islamic teachings not from other sources like greek or hindu ( maybe little but need proofs ), we saw that Islamic medicines were so high advances that never did before in other places. we should respect islamic scientist achievements without mix with some unqualified claims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Shatree (talk • contribs) 22:39, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Innacuracies and claims of "invention" and "being the first"

Some issues with this article.In the "other instruments",it says many of this instruments were invented by Abulcasis.Let´s see:

-scalpel:Known since antiquity,at least by the greeks and romans.

-surgical spoon:known since antiquity

-specula:known since antiquity

-surgical spoon:known since antiquity

-sound:known since antiquity

-surgical rod:knwon since antiquity

-bone saw:known since antiquity

-Forceps:known since antiquity.

Evidence:[8] [9] [10] [11]

Hematology and heredity section

This section claim Abulcasis wrote the first description of haemiphilia.While this may be partially true,he only told a story of a familly who died after bleeding.He did not explain the illness,or provided a cure for it.He just told the story of a case of haemophilia And what is more,the illness was alerady known since antiquity,when Rabbi Judah the Patriarch exempted male infants from circumcision if elder brothers had died as a result of this procedure.Source[12]

Allergology and immunology section

First it´s claimed that "the study of allergology and immunology originate from the Islamic world",which is(excuse my sincerity)bullshit.If we consider that this primitive approaches to be valid,then we have to conclude that immunology can be traced back to ancient babylonians,at least.Evidence here:[13]

Then,it´s calimed that the smallpox vaccine was invented in Turkey in the 18th century.First,this is out of place("medieval" in the title),and second it´s a lie.Vaccination was invented by Edward Jenner,as we all know.What the turks used was INOCULATION,which by the way started in China.It´s not the same as vaccination. The source,Paul Vallely,has been reapetedly criticised.Here there is a link to an article that discalims many supossed islamic inventions,including inoculation:[14]

Then,in the Tracheotomy section,it´s said that abulcasis invented it.This contradicts several evidence that this procedure was know since ancient times. Evidence[15] and [16]

In cancer therapy,It says "Avicenna described the first known treatments for cancer in The Canon of Medicine; one was a surgical method involving amputation or removal of veins",and "Avicenna's Canon also described the first known surgical treatment for cancer"

This are,of course lies.Cancer treatment and surgery is known since(again)ANCIENT times.Even some medieval doctors did it long before Avicenna.Evidence:[17]and [18]

That´s all.I´ll remove those claims,and then will continue studying this article to see if I can find more pro-Islam BIAS.Contact me for more info.--Knight1993 (talk) 18:39, 21 April 2010 (UTC)

#REDIRECT history of medicine

I've redirected this article, for the usual reasons: Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85 provides discussion: having gone back over the history to see where it comes from, I think that too much of the article is Jaggedese and unreliable. I couldn't even see a salvegable stub William M. Connolley (talk) 16:19, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Did you remove content based on a compiled list of revisions committed by Jagged85 to this article ? No you didn't, instead you have removed contributions by many other users as well. Flagged as vandalism, the next time you don't do your "cleanup" properly I'm filing an RfC. Al-Andalusi (talk) 19:11, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I've warned you before that unfounded allegations of vandalism amount to incivility: please mend your ways. I reviewed the article history, saw how much of it was from Jagged, and saw that large amounts of it were unreliable William M. Connolley (talk) 19:35, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

As for "I'm filing an RfC": Aam has already been down that route and failed, as you know full well. Your threats are empty William M. Connolley (talk) 19:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

"Islamic medicine" has been widely discussed by academics and deserves its own article. You need to work on trimming the article rather than wiping out history as if it never existed. Al-Andalusi (talk) 19:45, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

You miss the point. I agree that the article probably deserves its own article. I disagree that the current article is it, because it is too badly polluted by Jaggedese. If you care to replace it with an untainted stub, then fine. But please don't keep replacing all the Jagged-junk William M. Connolley (talk) 20:40, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Why aren't you at least keeping the lead and "further reading" sections of the article along with the structure/headings ? Surely, Jagged85 would not have also cooked up the names of books and journals, or did he ?! Of course this is the most extreme case that I had thought of but then you went further and removed the whole thing in one click. This is not a "cleanup" Al-Andalusi (talk) 21:27, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Like I say: If you care to replace it with an untainted stub, then fine. But please don't keep replacing all the Jagged-junk. If you think the lede (not lead) is OK, then consider stubbing it to just that, plus maybe any useful refs. However, that would leave it shorter than the section on the redirect page, so I don't know why that would be useful (though as J8079s points out, the redirect page is poor, too) William M. Connolley (talk) 21:37, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, per your suggestion, I've stubbed it. I'm still not really sure why you think that is more helpful, but if it makes you happy I'll give it a try William M. Connolley (talk) 14:25, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

I really am against redirecting an entire article just because it contains some junk by jagged 85

redirecting an entire article, does go against the idea of a Cleanup

in affect by redirecting, you are not really fixing the problem, but ignoring it

in fact it might constitute to stealthy aritcle deletion, without going through proper methods of deleting an article, you will see wikipedia files their "redirect policy" article, under the article deletion section

see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion

if you wanna delete article, please take it to a vote

--Misconceptions2 (talk) 21:18, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

If you don't know whether or not it contains junk, you shouldn't be restoring it. Are you really asserting that the article deserves to be restored, no matter how rubbish it may be? William M. Connolley (talk) 21:30, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

I fully support making this a redirect unfortunately it re-directs to a bad section but you can fix it.

To do list

1. add Galen it is Galenic-medicine that is practiced (some times called greco-roman medicine) (Avicennia's name becomes firmly attached to Hippocrates and Galen until Paracelsus burns their books and starts medicine on a new course though not yet "modern")
2. surgery is relegated to the barber shop and will remain there until the 19th century.
3. the hospital is ubiquitous in the Byzantine empire
4. what we have now is vandalism

J8079s (talk) 21:33, 2 April 2011 (UTC)

Oppose redirect which is annihilation of an article. Stubbing is the proper procedure and the criteria I understand to apply are here. This criteria should be applied to the version proposed for stubbing. -Aquib (talk) 00:37, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Policy citation for opposition: WP:Redirect Reading Wikipedia:Redirect#When_should_we_delete_a_redirect.3F shows ample reasons why this sort of redirect should not be performed. In particular, let me draw your attention to the concern expressed about redirecting articles with ample history. This is the annihilation of an article with ample edit history. -Aquib (talk) 01:33, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Policy citation for opposition: WP:Redirect (ctd) The list of reasons for a redirect does not include the suppression of an article's content. The only reason on the list that comes close to qualifying for the purposes of the people who wish to redirect is Sub-topics or other topics which are described or listed within a wider article. (Such redirects are often targeted to a particular section of the article.). Can anyone who favors redirecting this article make the claim that is their intention?

If so, I would refer them to the introductory statement at Redirects for discussion: Note: If all you want to do is replace a currently existing, unprotected redirect with an actual article, you do not need to list it here. Turning redirects into fleshed-out encyclopedic articles is wholly encouraged at Wikipedia. Be bold..

-Aquib (talk) 05:00, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

I am posting a warning on User talk:William M. Connolley's talk page. The reasons given for this attempted redirection are not consistent with WP Policy. I am posting a warning on WMC's talk page. Two such warnings by different individuals constitute grounds for an RFC/U. -Aquib (talk) 05:13, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Your threats are empty and your understanding of policy is lacking William M. Connolley (talk) 14:12, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Your remarks are uncalled for and uncivil. I will give you a warning for that as well. Please address the issues rather than personalities. -Aquib (talk) 15:48, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This is the place for discussing improvements to the article, not for making empty threats. Your understanding of policy is deficient: the reasons given for redirect of the article were entirely compatible with policy. If you think otherwise, please specify which policies they contradict. Your restoration of the article, by contrast, clearly does violate policy: you have restored polluted content William M. Connolley (talk) 14:22, 4 April 2011 (UTC)

Stubbing is the proper procedure. Fine; I've stubbed it instead. I hope you are happy now, but there is no need to thank me William M. Connolley (talk) 09:08, 5 April 2011 (UTC) Oh, and I've just spotted your the criteria I understand to apply are here. You're wrong: that was merely a throwaway comment; please don't try to pretend that it is policy William M. Connolley (talk) 09:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Fix It dont be a wikilawyer

To do list (in no real order)

1. add Galen it is Galenic-medicine that is practiced (some times called greco-roman medicine) (Avicennia's name becomes firmly attached to Hippocrates and Galen until Paracelsus burns their books and starts medicine on a new course though not yet "modern")
2. surgery is relegated to the barber shop and will remain there until the 19th century.
3. the hospital is ubiquitous in the Byzantine empire
4. Tasting urine is not urinalysis
5. see [19] Avicenna Biology and Medicine
6. see [20] Humoralism
7. Prioreschi, Plinio (2001). A History of Medicine: Byzantine and Islamic medicine. Horatius press. ISBN 9781888456042. Retrieved 3 April 2011.
8. Davis, Nathan (2010-05-25). History of Medicine. Applewood Books. ISBN 9781429043786. Retrieved 3 April 2011.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by J8079s (talk • contribs) 06:58, 3 April 2011

Due process is important. It would be helpful if you revisited your redirects as well. Thanks -Aquib (talk) 13:51, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

Item 4 on the list caught my eye, as in oh yuk. So I did a spot check. From what I see, Razi (AKA Rhazes) accomplishments are well known in the mainstream.

Here is a sample of what experts think about Rhazes at NIH.gov. It goes way beyond a claim for new urinalysis tests. A scan of the lit (not web sites) shows he had broad ranging impacts. The NIH article claims his texts were used in Europe for quite some time. He developed lab equipment according to another source. He specialized in urology.

Again, and please correct me if I am wrong, it seems we are sometimes judging claims with the "doesn't look right to me" methodology.. and it is not sufficient under the circumstances. In this case, it appears not only to be inadequate, but rather a disservice. Perhaps part of our problem is the mingling of Arabic and European names for these scientists in the literature? I just happened to notice he was referred to as Rhazes, at which time my search results became much more rewarding. Much caution is urged in this regard.

Verifiability. Due process.

Aquib (talk) 15:17, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

This article is being stubbed in violation of WP policy

As I have stated before on this page, the criteria for stubbing according to Elen of the Roads can be found here. This criteria should be applied to the version proposed for stubbing. This criteria has not been met, as far as I know, for any of the stubbings performed by this group, other than Science in medieval Islam. There is no other valid criteria I am aware of. I will not stand by and watch these articles be stubbed, moved or redirected until that specific criteria has been met.

If anyone wants to stub the article, let them post a list of 8-10 failed verifications in the current version and I will check their work. If the fails check out, I will step aside. Otherwise I will oppose any stubbing, redirect or move I can find.

This is the policy, and I am going to insist it be followed. -Aquib (talk) 12:43, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, you've said it before, and I've already pointed out that you are wrong: You're wrong: that was merely a throwaway comment; please don't try to pretend that it is policy William M. Connolley (talk) 09:09, 5 April 2011 (UTC). It isn't policy. Please don't go around making up policy, or pretending throwaway comments are policy William M. Connolley (talk) 13:00, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Didn't you tag the article (on top of other tags) to warn the user of the accuracy of the article's contents ? The message has been conveyed to the readers. In fact, such tags will have more profound and lasting effect on Islamic science articles even after we "de-jagg" the hell out of them. So I don't see why you insist on deletion, besides I don't understand why you haven't included the areas I verified and cleaned up in the "stubbed" version ? And no, I'm not always going to assume good faith behind such acts. Ok ? Al-Andalusi (talk) 13:49, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

No, your failure to WP:AGF isn't OK. But the stubbed article is not inviolate, of course. If you have sections of the un-stubbed article you think are OK, please copy them in (we are of course free to disagree). However, I'm not sure what you mean by I don't see why you insist on deletion - I don't insist on deletion. Are you confusing deletion with redirection? Because I don't even insist on re-direction; it was me that stubbed it. The message has been conveyed to the readers - it doesn't work like that. We have a constant stream of readers, and not all of them will come in to the head of the article William M. Connolley (talk) 14:16, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

OK, I looked at one of your edits marked "cleanup" [21]. That establishes a section called medical ethics, which says "The earliest surviving Arabic work on medical ethics is Ishaq bin Ali al-Ruhawi's Adab al-Tabib ("Practical Ethics of the Physician" or "Practical Medical Deontology")..." but it doesn't look very clean: do you really think ""Practical Medical Deontology"" is reasonable? It sounds totally anachronistic to me. If we follow the link to medical ethics we find in the history section In the medieval and early modern period, the field is indebted to Muslim medicine such as Ishaq bin Ali Rahawi (who wrote the Conduct of a Physician, the first book dedicated to medical ethics) which provides yet another translation of the book title. Ah... you've copied it from Al-Ruhawi I suppose? You wrote that, so could you say what the source is? William M. Connolley (talk) 15:54, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

A link to this "interpretation of policy" was Ruud Koot's sole comment during my recent Arbcom hearing request. If you wish to cite a different policy for consideration, please feel free. If we need to contact Elen for clarification, and/or go some other route to get a policy determination, then let us do so. -Aquib (talk) 17:22, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

@WMC:

• I propose to invite Elen to comment on this section, this specific question of the need for a certain number of failed verifications in an article in order to justify stubbing.

• Further, to promise to hereafter speak to her only if spoken to, to not contact her again unless first contacted by her, and to be bound by her opinions on the question of article stubbing.

• Will you also agree to those terms, provided she accepts my invitation?

Aquib (talk) 23:47, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

This is Wikipedia, and we don't have binding rules that override common sense. You will not be able to find a policy or a person to make it alright to keep junk. Please acknowledge the problem: Jagged 85 has severely misused sources and hundreds of articles contain a variety of incorrect material from subtle exaggerations to blatant mistruths. The fact that most of the errors have a plausible yet hard-to-access reference makes the problem very hard to deal with—even if one editor verifies a statement in a source, how is another editor to know that has been done? Johnuniq (talk) 00:27, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

John, are you saying you cannot come up with 8 solid fails in this ~130k article? You have to be able to provide some objective justification for what is being done here. That's common sense too. -Aquib (talk) 02:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

As a relatively disinterested observer, having had a quick look at Elen's edit which you seem to be placing such store by, as far as I can see you're misunderstanding it. Elen specifically rejected your proposal for a detailed analysis of a very large number of articles which have a very large number of very hard to find and correct errors, using references most editors don't have access to and have been shown to be wrong by editors who have been able to check them. She then went on to say that editors don't have the time, and that in practice after finding a few errors in a Jagged edited article, most editors would accept that the article was irredeemable and delete any information which didn't have very solid references. "8-10 fails" in this context should probably be treated as "some fails", and in all cases would depend on the judgement of the editor anyway.

The problem is that information has entered the encylopedia which is positively misleading, which is worse than no information at all. With that in mind, deletion (or stubbing) may well be the best course. If, later, an expert comes to the subject and wishes to use information from the history which they know to be correct (and can give solid references to), it would be easy to use the article history to look at the pre-stubbing version and see what can be salvaged.

If you, personally, know information is correct and you can provide good sources, you are of course welcome to do the same yourself. But given that information which is actively wrong is worse than no information at all, and given the number of errors which have been found when experts have looked at an article in detail, deletion is going to be the default action, eight definite errors or no. If you can provide good sources to keep some of the information from the 130K article- go ahead. But given the history of the case, I don't think you're going to persuade anyone to keep in the encyclopedia 130K of information largely written by Jagged. --Merlinme (talk) 09:06, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

To take a fairly random paragraph from the pre-stubbed version:

In the medieval Islamic world, hospitals were built in major cities; in Cairo for example, the Qalawun Hospital could care for 8,000 patients with a staff that included physicians, pharmacists, and nurses. One could also access a dispensary, and research facility that led to advances, which included the discovery of the contagious nature of diseases, and research into optics and the mechanisms of the eye. Muslim doctors were removing cataracts with hollow needles. Hospitals were built not only for the physically sick, but for the mentally sick also. One of the first ever psychiatric hospitals that cared for the mentally ill was built in Cairo. Hospitals later spread to Europe during the Crusades, inspired by the hospitals in the Middle East. The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingts, was founded by Louis IX after his return from the Crusade between 1254-1260.

There is one reference for this, which is apparently for the first hospital in Paris; I searched the reference for "Cairo", and found it once, in a list. So, did the Qalawun hospital exist? Could it care for 8,000 patients? Was "the contagious nature of diseases" discovered here? Did Cairo have "one of the first ever psychiatric hospitals"? I have no idea. But if we leave the article as it is, I'm sure those possibly incorrect facts will turn up in a school student's essay. And that's one paragraph with multiple facts which would have to be checked; as you've already noted, the article is very long. When Jagged is known to have contributed heavily to the article, and when numerous errors have already been found, to the extent that the article was already tagged for being factually inaccurate, stubbing seems appropriate. Even if we were to take Elen's brief comment as policy, looking at this Talk page, under 'Innacuracies and claims of "invention" and "being the first"', Knight1993 found many more than eight errors; so using the criteria, it would have been valid to stub or delete the article at that point. --Merlinme (talk) 09:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

After a slightly tedious and time consuming search for the history, I found that this paragraph was indeed added by Jagged as follows on 16th August 2007: [22]

Muslim physicians set up some of the earliest dedicated hospitals. In the medieval Islamic world, hospitals were built in all major cities; in Cairo for example, the Qalawun Hospital could care for 8,000 patients, and a staff that included physicians, pharmacists, and nurses. One could also access a dispensary, and research facility that led to advances in understanding contagious diseases, and research into optics and the mechanisms of the eye. Muslim doctors were removing cataracts with hollow needles over 1000 years before Westerners dared attempt such a task. Hospitals were built not only for the physically sick, but for the mentally sick also. One of the first ever psychiatric hospitals that cared for the mentally ill was built in Cairo. Hospitals later spread to Europe during the Crusades, inspired by the hospitals in the Middle East. The first hospital in Paris, Les Quinze-vingt, was founded by Louis IX after his return from the Crusade between 1254-1260.

The only difference is that the blatant lie "over 1000 years before Westerners dared attempt such a task" has been removed. But would you suggest that we should accept the accuracy of the rest of the paragraph? And that's one paragraph in a very long article, the vast majority of which seems to have been added by Jagged. Who on earth has the time to check all that? --Merlinme (talk) 09:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

A problem that we have is that, as you say, some "blatant lie"s have been removed, but the non-blatant ones have tended to stay. So over time the article has become more plausible, and in that sense even more badly misleading, though good-faith attempts at minor cleanup William M. Connolley (talk) 09:57, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

On the specific claim of 8,000 patients, I can't find anything which directly contradicts it, but it seems implausible; the largest hospital in the modern world has about 3,000 patients: "Chris Hani Baragwanath Hospital is the largest hospital in the world,[1] occupying 173 acres (0.70 km2), with 3 200 beds and 6 760 staff members". The population of Cairo at its height in the Middle Ages was about 500,000, so the suggestion is that about 1.6% of the population were patients in the hospital.

I remain extremely dubious about the other unsubtantiated claims in that paragraph; and, indeed, in the whole article. --Merlinme (talk) 10:07, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Here is a source that can support the 8,000 claim. It's the article "Bimaristan" (hospital in Persian?) in EI2. Here is a quote:

Formerly a Fatimid palace with accomodation for 8,000 persons, the Mansuri hospital possessed wards where fevers, ophthalmia, surgical cases, dysentery, etc., were separately treated, a pharmacy, a dispensary, store-rooms, attendants of both sexes, a large administrative staff, lecture arrangements, a chapel, a library, in fact all that the best experience of the time could suggest for the healing of the sick.

Just to restate what I've been saying about this whole episode: "In dealing with Jaggedism the preference should be to rephrase, not wholesale deletion. Rephrase, remove peacock terms, and replace unreliable sources with RS." Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 10:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

That reference doesn't support 8,000 patients; it supports 8,000 persons. The modern hospital has twice as many staff as patients, and given the "large administrative staff" etc. that might be plausible for the Cairo hospital as well, which would imply no more than 3,000 patients. Or with a split of 50/50, there would be 4,000 patients.

So, we've now confirmed that the first paragraph looked at is out by a factor of two on the one fact we've been able to check. Are you seriously suggesting we do this for the whole article? --Merlinme (talk) 10:34, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. We can only speculate about the number of patients, what accommodate here means, and whether facts about the palace are relevant to the hospital, etc. But my point is that instead of deleting this whole paragraph (or stubbing the article), we should at least try to find an RS and fix the wording/tone. I would say it would be a lot easier to verify sources and remove peacock terms and exaggerations than starting from scratch. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 11:09, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Please demonstrate the truth of your assertions by actually doing so William M. Connolley (talk) 12:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Wiqi55, you're missing the point. Misleading information is considerably worse than no information. We know there is misleading information in the article. There's misleading information in all the articles of this type which Jagged substantially edited. One estimate is that over half the substantial content edits he made (7 out of 13 randomly selected) have problems. The most ridiculous examples have been deleted, but if anything that makes it worse, as WMC notes, because it makes the rest of the dubious information seem more plausible. It would take an average editor months to check this article, given the size of it. There are 123 references, many hard to get hold of, and all of which would have to be checked word by word, given Jagged's known abuse of sources. This is ignoring the unreferenced claims, such as the handful I was looking at in that particular paragraph. (I believe the "one of the first ever psychiatric hospitals" claim is dubious as well.) During the months of cleanup the article would remain misleading. And even when cleanup was theoretically complete, could we be sure the article was correct? Even if you did your research, it would be easy to miss things such as the confusion (deliberate or not) which Jagged has made between 8,000 people and 8,000 patients. When someone has been actively adding misinformation to the encyclopedia, cleanup is not trivial. Given this, a negative approach (delete and then add back in what is good) must be preferable.

If you have the time and patience to add back information from Jagged's article, which you can back up with good sources, feel free. --Merlinme (talk) 12:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I understand your point, but I find stubbing to be counter-productive and will ultimately slow down the process of rebuilding articles. We want more editors to work on verifying sources and rewriting Jagged parts, but by stubbing articles we're hiding those same Jagged parts that we want others to verify or rewrite. Instead, we should use inline and article tags to warn against unverified information and ask for help. Tags like {{request quote}}, {{failed verification}}, and {{verify source}} should be enough to handle any situation where we suspect someone is misrepresenting sources. This approach will speedup rebuilding and will also warn readers not to be mislead by paragraphs with many tags.

Back to the Mansuri Hospital, I couldn't find any information on the total number patients resident at the hospital (beside the 8000 accommodation claim). But I found a number of secondary sources claiming that on average, 4000 patients used to enter or leave the hospital each day. This I believe is based on an account by the medieval traveler Khalid ibn ʿĪsa al-Balawī, in his Tāj al-Mafriq fī Taḥliyat ʿUlamāʾ al-Mashriq. This info might come in handy when rewriting that part. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 14:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Re we should use inline and article tags to warn against unverified information: this won't work: we'd have to scatter the entire article with this-needs-verification tags. And you're missing a large part of the point: no-one knows exactly which bits are iffy. Jagged has so polluted these articles that nothing, unless explicitly verified, can be considered reliable. As to by stubbing articles we're hiding those same Jagged parts that we want others to verify or rewrite: see Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Jagged_85#Tag_for_stubbed_pages.3F William M. Connolley (talk) 15:45, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I've now added Template:Jagged 85 shortened William M. Connolley (talk) 15:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I think we are missing the point here. If you want to stub this important article, please provide 8 examples of clearly failed verifications, in the version proposed for stubbing, confirmed by an independent party (such as me) to prove due diligence and due process has been followed. This is not too much to ask, it is very reasonable, and it is common sense. -Aquib (talk) 12:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I think we're going to have to disagree on that, as common sense would indicate to me that we assume this article has the same number of problems as all the others. Indeed, the Jagged edits in this article have already been shown to have numerous problems. In this case, I would suggest that the onus is on the Jagged believer to show what information in the article is actually correct, and add it back. --Merlinme (talk) 13:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I agree that misleading information is far worse than no information at all, and I am frankly baffled why we're having this conversation in the first place. :bloodofox: (talk) 16:05, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Apart from anything else, Aquib, do you seriously believe that we wouldn't find eight problems? Or, take use of sources. This source: [23] is cited seven times by Jagged. I have some problems with the use of this as an unbiased, Reliable Source, given the fact that it was specifically written to show that Islamic Medicine was "1000 years ahead of its time", and given uncritically reported anecdotes like this: "Razi was once called in to treat a famous caliph who had severe arthritis. He advised a hot bath, and while the caliph was bathing, Razi threatened him with a knife, proclaiming he was going to kill him. This deliberate provocation increased the natural caloric which thus gained sufficient strength to dissolve the already softened humours, as a result the caliph got up from his knees in the bath and ran after Razi." But assuming we accept it as a good source, how has Jagged used it? Some of the cites are fine. The references on psychiatry seem problematic to me though:

1. "were the first to provide psychotherapy and moral treatment for mentally ill patients" Doesn't seem supported by reference.
2. "Najab ud-din Muhammad (10th century) described a number of mental diseases in detail. He made many careful observations of mentally ill patients and compiled them in a book which "made up the most complete classification of mental diseases theretofore known." The mental illnesses described by Najab include agitated depression, neurosis, priapism and sexual impotence (Nafkhae Malikholia), psychosis (Kutrib), and mania (Dual-Kulb)." This is essentially a direct quote, with some rewording which arguably makes it less clear than the original what is being described. I would have preferred a direct quote. (This is admittedly quite easily fixed.)
3. "He also ran the psychiatric ward of a Baghdad hospital. Such institutions could not exist in Europe at the time because of fear of demonic possessions." The bit about demonic possession is supported by the source. The bit about such institutions not existing in Europe because of this is not supported by the source. (History_of_psychiatric_institutions#Medieval_era also lists a number of medieval European institutions, e.g. Bedlam, founded 1247.)
4. "Avicenna was a pioneer of psychophysiology and psychosomatic medicine. He recognized 'physiological psychology' in the treatment of illnesses involving emotions, and developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings, which is seen as an anticipation of the word association test attributed to Carl Jung". This is an almost direct quote from the source: "Ibn Sina recognized 'physiological psychology' in treating illnesses involving emotions. From the clinical perspective Ibn Sina developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings which has been viewed as anticipating the word association test of Jung." The use of a different form of the name to that in the source is irritating but I can live with it. "Pioneer" is not in the source. "Psychosomatic" is not in the source. And note the subtle POV pushing: "has been viewed as" becomes "is seen as"; "the word association test of Jung" becomes "the word association test attributed to Carl Jung". The version in article essentially implies that it is generally accepted that Jung was following in Ibn Sina's footsteps.

One source down; only 122 to go, many of them not available online. --Merlinme (talk) 16:32, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for taking the time to address this important issue. With your permission, I will move your 4 fails into a separate section so I can begin the process of evaluating them. -Aquib (talk) 17:19, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

List of challenged claims

A list of claims from the article identified as "having failed verification" and awaiting review Please do not edit this section, I will provide a subsection for comments below. Thank you

Submitted by Merlinme

Challenge 1

1 "were the first to provide psychotherapy and moral treatment for mentally ill patients" Doesn't seem supported by reference.

Challenge 2

2 "Najab ud-din Muhammad (10th century) described a number of mental diseases in detail. He made many careful observations of mentally ill patients and compiled them in a book which "made up the most complete classification of mental diseases theretofore known." The mental illnesses described by Najab include agitated depression, neurosis, priapism and sexual impotence (Nafkhae Malikholia), psychosis (Kutrib), and mania (Dual-Kulb)." This is essentially a direct quote, with some rewording which arguably makes it less clear than the original what is being described. I would have preferred a direct quote. (This is admittedly quite easily fixed.)

Challenge 3

3 "He also ran the psychiatric ward of a Baghdad hospital. Such institutions could not exist in Europe at the time because of fear of demonic possessions." The bit about demonic possession is supported by the source. The bit about such institutions not existing in Europe because of this is not supported by the source. (History_of_psychiatric_institutions#Medieval_era also lists a number of medieval European institutions, e.g. Bedlam, founded 1247.)

Challenge 4

4 "Avicenna was a pioneer of psychophysiology and psychosomatic medicine. He recognized 'physiological psychology' in the treatment of illnesses involving emotions, and developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings, which is seen as an anticipation of the word association test attributed to Carl Jung". This is an almost direct quote from the source: "Ibn Sina recognized 'physiological psychology' in treating illnesses involving emotions. From the clinical perspective Ibn Sina developed a system for associating changes in the pulse rate with inner feelings which has been viewed as anticipating the word association test of Jung." The use of a different form of the name to that in the source is irritating but I can live with it. "Pioneer" is not in the source. "Psychosomatic" is not in the source. And note the subtle POV pushing: "has been viewed as" becomes "is seen as"; "the word association test of Jung" becomes "the word association test attributed to Carl Jung". The version in article essentially implies that it is generally accepted that Jung was following in Ibn Sina's footsteps. Aquib (talk) 17:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Challenge 5

"the Qalawun Hospital could care for 8,000 patients with a staff that included physicians, pharmacists, and nurses". This appears to be a confusion, deliberate or otherwise, with the number of people in the palace (not just patients). --Merlinme (talk) 17:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Challenge 6

Fancy (cited seven times): Nahyan A. G. Fancy (2006), "Pulmonary Transit and Bodily Resurrection: The Interaction of Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in the Works of Ibn al-Nafīs (died 1288)", is an Unverifiable source; the thesis is only available on the Notre Dame campus. I'm dubious whether Jagged even read it. --Merlinme (talk) 17:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Challenge 7

"Abu al-Qasim al-Zahrawi (Abulcasis), in his Al-Tasrif (1000), invented the modern plaster and adhesive bandage, which are still used in hospitals throughout the world."

Unsupported by reference, which makes no reference to "bandage" at all. I would guess the writer became confused between plaster in the sense of sticking plaster and in the sense of plaster of paris. Plaster of paris for medical purposes was certainly an Arab invention; sticking plaster, well, it certainly doesn't say anything about it in the reference. --Merlinme (talk) 11:20, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Challenge 8

"Ammar ibn Ali al-Mawsili is also notable for inventing the injection syringe and hypodermic needle for the extraction of cataracts in the first successful cataract surgery." (my italics). The italicized part is just wrong. The fact that this is supported by two references surely demonstrates how dubious Jagged's use of sources is. --Merlinme (talk) 11:26, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Challenge 9

The Pharmacy section contains several references to the Arabs being first; the one claim I checked quickly, pharmacopoeia, seems to be wrong. --Merlinme (talk) 11:30, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Challenge 10

Invention of surgical instruments: the article says: "he invented... the surgical uses of catgut and forceps, the ligature, surgical needle, scalpel, curette, retractor, surgical spoon, sound, surgical hook, surgical rod, specula, bone saw..."

The reference is broken, but I found a live version here: [24] I assume this is the relevant passage:

Many modern surgical instruments are of exactly the same design as those devised in the 10th century by a Muslim surgeon called al-Zahrawi. His scalpels, bone saws, forceps, fine scissors for eye surgery and many of the 200 instruments he devised are recognisable to a modern surgeon. It was he who discovered that catgut used for internal stitches dissolves away naturally (a discovery he made when his monkey ate his lute strings) and that it can be also used to make medicine capsules.

"His designs of many surgical instruments are exactly the same as those in use in today" would be supported by the source. Note that the source doesn't even say that al-Zahrawi inspired the modern designs; it allows the possibility that similar designs were invented elsewhere, for example. All it actually says is that his designs were modern, i.e. they haven't been improved since. It also doesn't say he was the first to use catgut for internal stitches, just that he discovered that it dissolved if used in this way. Anyway, leaving those points aside, the statement he "invented the surgical uses of a, b, c, d, e..." is definitely not supported by the source, and in fact can easily be shown to be false for most of the instruments listed.

So how many "hard fails" is that? 12?

Not to put too fine a point on it, can we now consider Jagged's version of the article to be officially broken? --Merlinme (talk) 15:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes-Aquib (talk) 00:56, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Comments

I will begin reviewing these challenges at my earliest opportunity. Others, from both sides and elsewhere are welcome to participate, but please let's try and stay organized. thanks -Aquib (talk) 17:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Conclusion for challenges 1 through 6 Challenge 1 is a hard fail. I was worried about number 4, but when I looked at it after having read the applicable section of the article, I was much more comfortable with it. The rest of the verifications represent a combination of questions of wordings, and an appearance of the author having insights and knowledge beyond that contained in the source. So I guess we might call that skating, or a danger one might face when writing a bit too quickly about a subject they are familiar with or have quickly absorbed. Yes I detect some POV, but as is the case with other out of scopes, I believe they represent an issue which is not central to this discussion. For instance, if someone sees undue weight or POV, the best remedy is to balance the work; deleting it or replacing it with another POV are not generally the preferred approaches. Excepting item 1, I didn't see that much POV and most POV is verifiable in any case.

Moreover, we need some better examples of hard failures upon verification. Content is written by humans and will contain flaws upon close examination. Let's not sit here and deconstruct the article. I wish to see if the opposing editors can produce 7 more hard fails on verify; if they can, I will step aside.

Thanks -Aquib (talk) 02:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I still view 4 as a "hard fail" for abuse of the source to suggest certainty where none exists in the original. For 3, it may be the sort of inadequate referencing which happens all the time in Wikipedia, but it still demonstrates how Jagged's references in hard to verify sources cannot be relied on to support what he says in the article. For 5, it may not have been a deliberate mistake but it's certainly unverified (and almost certainly wrong). For 6, it remains to be verified whether Jagged's references are actually correct in this rather hard to verify source.
Finally, I'm still not quite sure what the point of this exercise is. We've looked at one paragraph and one source, and found about four problems, to a greater or lesser extent. Whether you think they're wilful is beside the point; he's extremely unreliable. Given that the vast majority of the article was written by Jagged, that means most of the article is unreliable. Given the previously made points that incorrect information is worse than no information, and given that it will, as previously noted, take months to correct the article Jagged wrote, the article needs to be stubbed, as it has been.
I personally don't have the time to chase down every single one of Jagged's claims, and I doubt anyone else does either. Even by your count, there was one hard fail in the one paragraph I looked at. Do you seriously think we won't find another seven in the 100+ paragraphs to go? For that matter, if there are problems with approximately half of Jagged's substantive edits- well, he certainly made a lot more than sixteen edits to this article. --Merlinme (talk) 10:17, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Please reserve the space below for comments directly addressing specific challenges. -Aquib (talk) 18:16, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 1

Isn't this rather missing the point? I was demonstrating, I hope fairly conclusively, that some hours of work would find eight fails easily. As a non-expert I've found about half that number by analysing one paragraph and one source. And why do we believe this is any different to any of the other hard to check sources which Jagged made up or misquoted? I would suggest accepting that the article as written by Jagged is essentially unfixable, and move on to creating a good article. I don't doubt there is one to be written, the source I did read was certainly interesting enough. But as far as I see it (and many other editors see it) Jagged's edits are so unreliable that, assuming the goal is an accurate encylopedia, it's going to be quicker and safer to start from scratch. --Merlinme (talk) 17:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Your point has been made over and again. Now it's time to prove it. You are welcome to withdraw your challenges, but if I were you, I would keep in mind: the more your team avoids addressing this issue head on, the more likely it becomes others will begin to wonder what is going on here. -Aquib (talk) 18:14, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Right. Well, when you've sorted out the six challenges to everyone's satisfaction, we can move on to the rest of the article. --Merlinme (talk) 21:36, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I am concentrating on this one first. -Aquib (talk) 23:30, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm calling this a hard fail on verification. The article specifically states the Arabs brought a refreshing spirit of dispassionate clarity into psychiatry.

Can someone confirm this is a Jagged edit, please?

Aquib (talk) 23:52, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

• We have a source here: Faith and mental health: religious resources for healing (Templeton Foundation Press, 2005) by Harold George Koenig that says:

"Muslims played a key role in setting up some of the first hospitals built for the care of persons with sever mental illness." (p.29)

"According to historical record, the earliest hospital providing care to the insane was in Cairo, built in 872 by Ahmad ibn Tulun, the governor of Egypt...Muslims also established one of the first hospitals in Europe that was designed specifically for treatment of the mentally ill".

Al-Andalusi (talk) 00:59, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Moral treatment, perhaps, but I'm afraid the source used in the article contradicts the claim on psychiatry by inferring it already existed before the Arabs began to practice it. A claim to being first is a red flag in these sorts of articles. Sorry, this claim looks like an overreach. Maybe it's true, but it failed verification. -Aquib (talk) 02:04, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I have confirmed that the text came from Jagged:

23:17, 15 December 2007 diff introduced:

They made significant advances to psychiatry and were the first to provide psychotherapy for mentally ill patients.

23:41, 15 December 2007 diff changed to:

They made significant advances to psychiatry and were the first to provide psychotherapy and moral treatment for mentally ill patients...

Later I will add a summary of Jagged's edits to this article in another section. Johnuniq (talk) 04:27, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Thank you John -Aquib (talk) 04:32, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Oddly, the book by Koenig mentioned above also says: "One of the first hospitals devoted to treating those with mental illness was established in Jerusalem in 490" (ISBN 193203191X, p. 19), which seems to contradict the remark on p. 29. Spacepotato (talk) 03:54, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Wonder if you had to arrange payment in advance back then, or if that is a more recent innovation -Aquib (talk) 04:44, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 2

Let us agree this is outside the scope of our effort. Is that OK with you? This is really not the sort of thing I had in mind. -Aquib (talk) 23:17, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I wouldn't have personally put it as a "challenge" in the first place. --Merlinme (talk) 09:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 3

This challenge requires examination, I will take it on. -Aquib (talk) 22:38, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

This one next-Aquib (talk) 00:49, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

• Marie L. Thompson, writing in Mental Illness, Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006, p.7:

"Because the Arabs had no fear of demonds, their patients were treated humanely. In Europe, however, where belief in demonic possession persisted, treatment facilities did not exist because people feared becoming possessed simply by associating with the mentally ill. Centuries later, the Islamic concept would dramatically influence Greek and European philosophies on mental illness".

Sorry Aquib, couldn't resist :) Al-Andalusi (talk) 01:10, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

By all means and many thanks Al-Andalusi!

Reading the paragraph in the source, comparing it to the claims in the article, looking up definitions of institution, it's borderline and could go either way. Surely it will be taken differently by different people. Reading the WP article section about medieval psychiatry, about Bethlem and Islamic psychiatry, comparing what was being done with the mentally ill, it struck me as a conclusion drawn from a strong implication in the source, or a fact already known to the WP author. Seeing Thompson's description reinforces this impression.

I don't know exactly how to describe this, but I think most people would agree it's not a hard fail. -Aquib (talk) 01:40, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps not, but it's still a misuse of a source. If it were replaced by the reference Al-Andalusi gives- fine. --Merlinme (talk) 09:47, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 4

This one is complex and subtle, clearly debatable, and as such, not what I have been asking for; ie "hard fails". If we take on ones like this, we will never finish. Nevertheless I will examine it more closely. -Aquib (talk) 22:44, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

• The words "pioneer" and "psychosomatic medicine" probably come from the following sentence:

"Avicenna was also a pioneer in the fields of psychophysiology and psychosomatic medicine"

in Panorama of Psychology by Vilen Vardanyan which appears to be a self-published source. Al-Andalusi (talk) 01:25, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Here we run into the problem of verifiability. The other source should have been used. Let's look closer. -Aquib (talk) 01:42, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

"Pioneer" is general enough to be suitable under these circumstances. Reading the article I came to conclusion some of ibn Sina's work was in the area of "psychosomatic" illness, that's not a problem as far as I am concerned. And, yes, I detect a hint of a push in there as well. But not a hard fail. -Aquib (talk) 02:29, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Oh come on. Changing: "which has been viewed as anticipating the word association test of Jung" to: "is seen as an anticipation of the word association test attributed to Carl Jung" is about as bad an abuse of a source as I can imagine. The quote is nearly word for word- except that certainty has been given to something which is not certain in the original. For me, this is a hard fail. --Merlinme (talk) 09:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OK your comments are noted, let's leave this one hanging for now. -Aquib (talk) 12:09, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 5

I will examine this one more closely -Aquib (talk) 22:48, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The interpretation that "accommodate" refers to patients is plausible, and not specific to Jagged. Here is a a source that made the same claim. There are many other sources too, either "8000 patients" or a capacity of "8000 beds", etc. Wiqi⁽⁵⁵⁾ 23:20, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for your help, Wiqi. I can use it. -Aquib (talk) 23:26, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

It is quite plausible this is a mistake. The idea this particular factoid would have been fabricated or promoted for purposes of misrepresentation, especially under the circumstances, seeing other authors use these numbers differently, seems a long shot. This is not a hard fail. It is more likely a transcription error or something.

It's possible it was a genuine mistake. It still looks wrong. --Merlinme (talk) 09:52, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 6

I will do my best to validate this one. If I can get to the paper, I can tell whether it is a failure on verification and make a determination. If it comes down to a question of RS, it will probably be outside of my intended scope. It is, however, noted and deserving of discussion. -Aquib (talk) 22:53, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

I will try to get this paper next. -Aquib (talk) 23:54, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

The dissertation has been published. It's expensive to purchase a copy. My understanding is a source such as this is acceptable on Wikipedia. -Aquib (talk) 00:27, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Re above dead link. The dissertation has been published. Proquest content can't be accessed directly. Cookies or authentication or I don't know what. You can get to the UMI page from Google. From there, a link at the bottom of the page will take you to Proquest where this PDF can be purchased for $37. Proquest says their material is available through libraries. I don't know much about this stuff. Guess I'm going to get to learn. Personally I buy my books off Amazon or get them from libraries. But WP rules permit these types of sources, Al-Andalusi has access to them, and I suppose they have a place. -Aquib (talk)

Such sources may have a place, but I would suggest a more easily verifiable source which says the same thing should always be preferred. And when used by Jagged, I would say verifiability has to be a requirement. In general, Aquib, you seem to show an understandable desire to Assume Good Faith with Jagged's edits on these articles; I'm afraid the history of the case suggests to me that this is not sensible. As can easily be shown, Jagged makes overblown claims which could most charitably be described as fantasy, and then backs them up with references which he's either misunderstood, misquoted, or sometimes just don't support what he wants to say. I found several highly questionable claims in Jagged's version of the article in about ten minutes earlier, but actually I'm not so bothered about the obvious ones (relatively easy to fix) as the more subtle ones where he's misquoted a source, requiring each and every one of his references to be checked carefully. Fixing the damage is a gargantuan task. Hence the decision to stub. --Merlinme (talk) 15:00, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Your concerns are understandable. My concern is for the content. As long as you can keep AGF on my part we can move forward. Let me look at the new challenges you posted. Thanks -Aquib (talk) 15:14, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm happy to assume good faith on your part. The tragedy of the whole thing is that there's definitely an interesting article to be written here, and Jagged could have been very helpful in writing it. Unfortunately he chose to make large parts up, leaving us where we are now. --Merlinme (talk) 15:33, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

It is an unfortunate situation. Thank you -Aquib (talk) 23:58, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

• I can access the journal. Al-Andalusi (talk) 00:39, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OK thanks Al-Andalusi -Aquib (talk) 00:44, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

The journal is accessible. The question is out of scope, but it is also resolved.

Well, no. Al-Andalusi now has to either provide a reference that the rest of us can actually check, or he has to check all the references himself. Jagged has history of misusing hard to verify sources; the point of the challenge is that this is a hard to verify source. It should therefore either be removed or each of the seven references should be verified by another editor. --Merlinme (talk) 09:43, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

OK your point is taken. But I don't have it and Al-Andalusi didn't sign up to underwrite my commitment. So we can leave this one hanging for now. -Aquib (talk) 12:06, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 7

I will look into this shortly, thanks -Aquib (talk) 23:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Looks like a misunderstanding. -Aquib (talk) 02:26, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 8

I will look into this shortly, thanks -Aquib (talk) 23:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Hard fail It seems cataract surgery was performed in India long before this time. -Aquib (talk) 01:40, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Comment 9

I will look into this shortly, thanks -Aquib (talk) 23:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Hard fail the source refers to Sumerian pharmacopoeia. -Aquib (talk) 01:52, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Entire pharmacy section added here

In the first version, it is spelled pharmacopoedia

First drug store probably a hard fail.

Comment 10

I will look into this shortly, thanks -Aquib (talk) 23:50, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

Having looked at the source, I see these instruments are described in a text published around the year 1000, translated into Latin and used extensively in Europe. So I don't know if there is a page numbering problem or multiple problems, or if the modern instrument is exactly the same (obviously the materials in many cases will be different), but it seems quite likely the source intends to state these instruments were invented by al-Zahrawi.

I will not take the time to sort this one out. The pharmacy section being extremely dense and carrying only a few citations, containing a hard fail on spot check convinced me. I will look for the source of the material in the pharmacy section. -Aquib (talk) 02:25, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Misuse of sources

This article has been edited by a user who is known to have misused sources to unduly promote certain views (see WP:Jagged 85 cleanup). Examination of the sources used by this editor often reveals that the sources have been selectively interpreted or blatantly misrepresented, going beyond any reasonable interpretation of the authors' intent.

Diffs for each edit made by Jagged 85 are listed at cleanup3. It may be easier to view the full history of the article.

A script has been used to generate the following summary. Each item is a diff showing the result of several consecutive edits to the article by Jagged 85, in chronological order.

• Medicine in medieval Islam: [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48]

Johnuniq (talk) 04:37, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm done here

The article contains more than 8 hard fails. Thanks to the people who helped me check this article, and those who were patient, and even those who did not complain too loudly. -Aquib (talk) 04:05, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

I've been away for a few days, but just to say briefly that I'm glad we were able to resolve this to everyone's satisfaction. In general I think it's fairly easy to find hard fails in Jagged's articles by looking for "first". I might try this approach in articles he edited which haven't been stubbed.

I hope however it's now clear to those who wished to believe the best of Jagged's edits that he's an extremely unreliable editor, and stubbing is the appropriate course of action for articles which he largely created. --Merlinme (talk) 08:34, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Re the "first" issue: I suppose you mean you would use terms like "first" to identify claims that may quickly lead to a "failed verification" conclusion. However, in the past I have seen a suggestion to cleanup such failed claims, and I want to mention that I would oppose that: if we just clean up the "obvious" stuff, it would be hard for the rest of the article to ever get serious attention since there would no longer be anything noticably bad. Removing just obvious problems may leave more subtle exaggerations and distortions that would be undisturbed for years. Johnuniq (talk) 08:52, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

I take your point, and it is a risk. However saying that x was the first to do y is the sort of neat little fact that people regularly pick up on and quote, and the more of these "facts" that remain in Wikipedia for any length of time, the more they are going to be quoted. I think people know to treat Wikipedia carefully as an encyclopedic source, particularly with regard to balance, but when I see a referenced "hard fact" in Wikipedia I expect it to be correct. At the moment there are many referenced hard facts which are simply wrong, which is a big problem for Wikipedia's credibility.

Have a look at the talk page of Islamic Golden Age if you wish to see the results of a search for "first". --Merlinme (talk) 09:36, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Yes, I just noticed that; good work! What I'm saying is that if investigation confirms that an article is broken, it would be better to stub it (go to {{Jagged 85 shortened}} and click "What links here" for some examples), rather than just remove a few blatantly wrong claims. Johnuniq (talk) 10:56, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. See-also my comment above of 09:57, 6 April 2011 William M. Connolley (talk) 11:58, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

VN

This edit makes several claims that need to be discussed:

The first [[encyclopedia]] of medicine in Arabic was [[Ali ibn Sahl Rabban al-Tabari]]'s ''Firdous al-Hikmah'' (''"Paradise of Wisdom"''), written in seven parts, c. 860. Al-Tabari, a pioneer in the field of [[child development]], emphasized strong ties between [[psychology]] and medicine, and the need for [[psychotherapy]] and [[counseling]] in the therapeutic treatment of patients. His encyclopedia also discussed the influence of [[Sushruta]] and [[Chanakya]] on medicine, including psychotherapy. Haque Amber (2004). "Psychology from Islamic Perspective: Contributions of Early Muslim Scholars and Challenges to Contemporary Muslim Psychologists". Journal of Religion and Health. 43 (4): 357–377 [361]. doi:10.1007/s10943-004-4302-z. {{cite journal}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

1. It is not the first in Arabic does the source say it is?
2. Does the source say he used Greek/Syriac sources on child development (Rufus of Ephesus?)
3. Sushruta and Chanakya are in the appendix does the source say there is commentary?
4. Does the source identify any of al-Tabri's sources?
5. does the source include a bibliography?

I am "nit picking" but I would appreciate some help on this as the article is cited 39 times and each edit reads more like it came from a review than from the article it's self. This could be just my reading but I would like some help.J8079s (talk) 23:21, 25 May 2011 (UTC)

1. No it doesn't. However the "Encyclopaedia of the history of science, technology, and medicine in non-western cultures" on p.930 states: "This was the first and most comprehensive medical encyclopedia of its kind in Islam".

2. No, do you have a source for that ? Besides, it's not appropriate to use vn tag for this. The vn is a request that someone verify the cited source and checks whether it backs up the material in the passage, which I can see it does.

3. Quote from the source: "Tabari discusses ancient Indian texts in this book and refers to the contributions of Sushtra and Chanakya in relation to medicine including psychotherapy".

4. Not relevant. (also see point #2)

5. It has a references section.

In summary, the paragraph is clearly backed by the source. Al-Andalusi (talk) 02:01, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Thank you I like your new source a great deal

please see this one Prioreschi, Plinio (2001). A History of Medicine: Byzantine and Islamic medicine. Horatius press. pp. 222–223. ISBN 9781888456042. Retrieved 26 May 2011. This is two books in one volume not a mix of both.

1) Prioreshi calls it "one of the oldest complete Arabic compendia that have come down to us"

2) I can find no source for child development by al-Tabari (that is why I ask)(Rufus was just a guess)

3) Not much of a quote

4) Prioreshi pg 223 "The work is based on Syriac translations of Greek sources (Hippocates, Galen, Dioscorides and others) and includes an appendix that is a review of Indian medicine based on Persian and Arabic translations of Indian medical works. (He cites Manfred Ullman Islamic Medicine as his source)

5) Could you share the references? we are trying to build an encyclopedia

If al-Tabari, a very important guy whose works are not lost to us, was a pioneer of child development and psychotherapy it should (probably will) show up in sources we can all use. again thank you for your time J8079s (talk) 06:18, 26 May 2011 (UTC)

Towards a more neutral sentence if we cant find support for Haque the parts not supported by the other sources will need to read According to Amber Haque...or something similar. Also since neither source says first ( one says first (of its kind) the other says the oldest (complete) could we find better superlatives? J8079s (talk) 00:12, 27 May 2011 (UTC)

Errm

New name, new POV intro [25]. I'm dubious. Revert both? William M. Connolley (talk) 17:40, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

About the name change, see here: [26]. :bloodofox: (talk) 21:32, 28 July 2011 (UTC)

"medicine" section

I'm not sure "medicine" is the best title for this section. That title is a little generic. What is the main thread tying the things in this section together? Also, while the section contains lots of good information, it should be edited so that it flows better. --Jdenbow (talk) 19:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"hospitals" section

Are there any images of early Islamic hospitals that might be included as a visual aide in this section? --Jdenbow (talk) 19:51, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"surgery" section

To streamline this section, how about adding links for the specialized terms that are defined in this section? For example, you could just provide a link to the wikipedia entry on "cauterization," instead of explaining what it is in the body of this section. --Jdenbow (talk) 19:55, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

"women in medicine"

There's a lot of interesting information in this section, but it should be edited for clarity. Also, there are some grammar mistakes and typos. --Jdenbow (talk) 19:59, 5 December 2011 (UTC)