What each part of the body is for

This lesson asks you to describe the structure, function and importance of specialised cells and tissues in multicellular organisms. The museum offers only an older scheme: Ibn Sina's account of the body's simple parts, such as bone and nerve, and what each is for. Cells, the structure of tissues and the modern account of specialisation are for your class. ¹

The expectation asks for structure, function and importance. For each part the record names, write what it is and what it does for the body.

Look at how Ibn Sina sorts the body in the Canon. He defines an organ as a body generated from the first temperament of the humours, and divides it into simple and composite ². The simple is what shares the whole in name and definition in any part taken from it, like flesh, bone and nerve; these are called organs of similar parts ². The composite is what does not, like the hand and the face, and is called an instrumental organ because it is an instrument of the soul in movements and actions ². Among the similar-part organs he counts first the bone, because it is the body's foundation and the support of movements ³. The record of anatomy gives the rest of the list.

The record of anatomy has no passage in which Ibn Sina says why he wrote this section. What it shows is that he names a use for each part. He counts cartilage to stand between the hard and the soft and to serve as support for joints and the sinews of muscles ³, and the nerve as the part by which sensation and movement are completed ³. He calls the composite organs instruments of the soul in movements and actions ². In this account each part is named together with what it is for.

Ask how the author knew what he describes. Ibn al-Nafis says that he did not perform dissection himself, for religious reasons and because compassion prevented him ⁴. For the forms of the inner organs he relied on what earlier writers described, especially Galen, and for their functions he relied on observation ⁴. By his own account, then, what his commentary says about the form of the inner organs is what others had described.

Ibn al-Nafis says he took the forms of the inner organs from earlier writers and their functions from observation ⁴. Take a position and answer the strongest objection to it: which would you trust more for what a body part is for, a description taken from an earlier writer or one based on observation, and why?

• Anatomy: the Canon's list of the simple organs, and what each is for.
• Ibn Sina: the author of the Canon, whose scheme the record sets out.
• Ibn al-Nafis: who explained that scheme in a commentary and says how he worked.
• Galen: the earlier writer Ibn al-Nafis relied on for the forms of the organs.

Read about anatomy in the Canon. Make a table of the parts the record names, with a column for what each is for.