Abstract

The Arab medical tradition profoundly contributed to current health sciences. Muhammad ibn Zakariya Al-Razi, also known as Rhazes, was one of the masters of the classical Arabic Medicine. This minireview aims to highlight the work of Al-Razi, who, apart from being a prominent physician, was also a chemist (alchemist) and philosopher, a polymath who fused the Greek medical tradition with the advances of the Golden Age of Arabic medicine, leaving a legacy that survived the middle Ages in a knowledge that has reached today. He was the first one to write a paediatric text as an independent specialty in medicine. His discoveries in chemical and pharmaceutical sciences represent the apogee of Islamic alchemy. We think that studying Al-Razi should be an important part of the Medical Humanities because it provides a fundamental historical knowledge, useful to understand the current advances in natural sciences and biomedicine. Therefore, his legacy should be promoted amongst the new generations.