Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to describe how science and technology are used in different jobs and how that work meets real needs, and to analyse what different communities have contributed to science and technology. The museum offers a hospital in Egypt, a physician-scholar and a hospital in Baghdad built on an earlier model. Other jobs, skilled trades and other communities are for your class to bring. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- A3.1 describe practical applications of science and technology concepts in various occupations, including skilled trades, and how these applications address real-world problems
- A3.3 analyse contributions to science and technology from various communities
2 Before you start
A thought to carry into the lesson.
3 The lesson
Who does what in a place where science is applied?
Pick a workplace and list the jobs in it. For each job, ask which problem the person solves and which science or technology they use. Compare your lists.
How would you show who contributed to a place or an idea?
The expectation asks you to analyse contributions. Think about what evidence tells you who did what, and where an idea or a model came from before it reached the place you are studying.
Go deeper
The historian al-Maqrizi quotes an old biography about Ibn Tulun's hospital in the Fustat area, and it follows a sick person from the door to the way home 2. The patient's clothes were removed and kept, with their money, by the hospital custodian 2. The patient received clothing and bedding 2. Medicines, food and physicians attended the patient morning and evening until recovery 2. When the patient could eat a chicken and a loaf, discharge was ordered and money and clothes returned 2. Al-Maqrizi names the physicians, the custodian and the attendants only by their jobs 2.
Think about it
If nobody did one of these jobs, which would a sick person miss most: the custodian's, the physician's or the attendant's, and why?
Into the museum
- Ibn Tulun's hospital: the whole account, including the properties that Ibn Tulun gave to support it.
- Harun al-Rashid's hospital in Baghdad: a hospital built on the model of an older one at Jundishapur.
- Ibn al-Nafis: a physician in Egypt who left his books to a hospital.
Try this
Read about Harun al-Rashid's Baghdad hospital. Make a table of the people it names and what each one did.
4 Carry it further
Where this lesson leads in the museum.
5 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Ibn Tulun's endowed civilian hospital have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A hospital with an endowment. Al-Maqrizi quotes the compiler of the Tulunid biography: Ahmad ibn Tulun established a hospital in the Fustat area and endowed it with properties. The hospital kept a patient's clothes and money safe, supplied hospital dress, bedding, medicines and food until recovery, and returned his belongings when he left. The account names the physicians, the custodian and the attendants only by their roles. Which of these jobs would you ask about?
In your own words: what does Ibn al-Nafis have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
A physician and his books. Ibn al-Imad calls Ibn al-Nafis the shaykh of medicine in Egypt, the one to whom knowledge of medicine ultimately led. Ibn al-Nafis wrote the medical book al-Shamil, and he endowed his properties and his books to the Mansuri hospital. What would a physician's books do for the patients of a hospital?
I can now