3. MUSLIM CONTRIBUTION TO SCIENCE

~ 108 ~ The Muslims arriving at the correct hypothesis of the solar system’s functioning was made possible only because Islam had broken down the walls of conditioned thinking which had acted as a barrier to man’s intellectual progress. As soon as this artificial barrier was out of the way, the caravan of human thought began to move on its journey with a hitherto unimaginable rapidity. And thus it brought us finally to the spectacular scientific feats of the present century. MEDICINE Just as diseases have afflicted man in every age, so has the science of medicine always existed in one form or the other. In ancient times, however, the science of medicine never reached the heights of progress that it did in the Islamic era and also latterly, in modern times. It is believed that the beginning of the science of medicine—a beginning to be reckoned with-was made in ancient Greece. The two very great physicians who were born in ancient Greece were Hippocrates and Galen. Hippocrates lived in the