Tabiba
(A story about the invention of the vaccine)
Welcome dear friends. I am so honoured that so many of you deem it worth your while to spend a whole hour every Friday, laden with your shopping as you are, to listen to the divagations of this doddering old man.
Too much self deprecation might be counter-productive. Don’t overdo it.
But obviously a young hakawati may lack the insight into human nature to make his story worth your time. An old man may no longer has the seductive melodious voice of youth and the rhythms to keep you spellbound, but he will tell his tale and go deep into its ramifications. But I am shooting off tangents, which is the thing my old teacher Quayyum bin Quayyum taught us to avoid, so I will stick to my tale,
Today’s story is about Tabiba Quddusia, perhaps the most celebrated medical scholar in our history. She lived in the times when disease and pestilence were rife. Come to think about it, when has it not been so? Everybody welcomed the coming of antibiotics, thought that disease was now dead, but sadly disease did not give up.
But unfortunately, the people of Baghdad were not always as enlightened as we are now. Or claim we are. Although our prophet … on whom be peace … had always taught that women were the equal of man … didn’t he put a stop to the practice of burying girls alive which was sadly practised in our lands, specially in times of famine? Did he not say that on the day of judgement these poor babies would confront the people who suffocated them and ask, “What were our sins that we had to be buried alive?” Didn’t Muhammad … on whom be peace …eh … once a man came to him and asked, “Prophet, do we have rights over our women?” You do indeed was the answer. As the man was satisfied with the answer he was going away, Muhammad … on whom be peace … held him by his khamis and continued … ‘Same as the woman has rights over her man.’
I am not here today to teach you what you pious men, ready for the Jummaj prayers later know better than me, I mean our Quranic wisdom. You’ve listened to the Imam’s khutba, his sermon same as me … I do not claim to be a better believer than you, but thought I’d mention these facts as they are relevant to my tale today. I say tale, but it is a true story. Call it history.
I knew I’d be treading dangerous ground today, but so far so good, as said the man half way to the ground from a fall from the highest palm tree in the world.
Although there was a time when in our part of the world women occupied key positions, were running businesses, were teachers and doctors, this desirable state did not last long. Our prophet died and gradually the obscurantism of old began to rear its ugly head. So, when diseases and pestilences began smiting the country, there were no tabiba_ women doctors.
Again bear with me, I am a teller of tales and not a learned scholar, but I need to remind you of these facts as they are relevant to what I am about to narrate.
Today our universities are teeming with members of the fair sex, studying to become tomorrow’s judges and chartered accountants, architects, engineers, statisticians, doctors and scientists, but in those days women could only become doctors if their fathers were doctors and trained them, and even then people were reluctant to call a female doctor, and they left to caring for children and women. But dear friends, you have daughters, you have sisters, and you know that they are often more intelligent than you.
I shouldn’t have said that, let’s see if I can undo the harm.
As I was saying, they are often almost as intelligent as you.
They liked that.
Tabib Abderrehman el Tayyabi had been a devoted doctor to the poor of Al
Dora, and he never refused treatment if the people said they had no money. But the really poor folks always brought him an egg or an egg plant, perhaps a little honey, but although he never became rich, he was well able to provide for his wife and only daughter Quddusia. When his wife died in childbirth_ he so badly wanted a son, he was so absorbed by his practice that he never re-married. Quddusia was a diligent and intelligent girl, and although Abderrehman only taught her school topics like mathematics, history or Arabic, by listening to him talking to his patients she picked a lot of valuable information and knowledge. When the tabib realised how much his daughter had learnt, he took the decision to train her in his field, and very soon realised that his beloved daughter was born to become a doctor. She understood herbs and plants and their curative powers probably better than himself at her age, and learnt about the uses of the various salts used by the apothecary. He also caught her delving into his medical tomes.
When she was eight, Maasha Allah.
He was delighted that she quickly learnt how to wield the surgical knife. She would make an excellent butcher, he thought. Pardon me for this tasteless joke.
Well they laughed. Quayyum bin Quayyum taught us that if you had a joke at the tip of your tongue, the best thing is to blurt it out.
He encouraged her in her reading of the treaties of Avicenna, Averroes, Al Biruni and translations of Galen. If only the Academy of Gondishapur, where he spent three years training with eminent Chinese and Indian professors, would accept girl students! Maybe the time will come one day, Insha Allah. But he would teach her all he knew, and encourage her, and put her to the test, and he did, she almost never got a thing wrong.
Ladies and gentlemen, I need to give you these details because they will help you understand the young lady.
Quayyum bin Quayyum tried hard to put in our thick heads _ often by knocking us with his index finger pushed to form a loop by his thumb. — which details are relevant, and which ones likely to send our audience snoring. Sometimes he pulled our ears too.
At eighteen she was good enough to start practising medicine, curing diseases and preventing death, but sadly, in spite of her obvious accomplishment, people were reluctant to use their services. Many good women doctors never had any patients, but at least Quddusia was tolerated when she worked as his assistant. In the beginning she treated children and women and girls only. I apologise first, but I should perhaps remind you that women did not like to show certain parts of their body to a male doctor. When it came to cauterisation and surgery, he could see that with her firm grip and natural flair that she was better than himself. He did manage to convince a few men that since he has shaking hands, they had better let her operate.
To cut a long story short, it was obvious to him that she was the most skilful doctor that he had ever met. Although he had his pride, he admitted to himself that she was better than he had ever been, even in his younger days. More clear-headed, more skilful with her hands.
Now, my friends, as I have told you earlier on, the country was often subject to epidemics of all sort. And every three or four years after an infestation of rats, people would foam at the mouth and die. Pestilence! Bubonic plague. But the most common epidemic was small pox. That happened almost every two years.
It started with high fever and chills. Then the patient gets bad headaches, followed by severe pains, on the back and abdomen. This gave rise to bouts of vomiting. After a few days the symptoms go away, but red rashes appeared, first on the face, then spreading to other parts. They end up with pock marks on the body, usually the face, and have to bear this misfortune for the rest of their lives. That’s for the lucky people who did not die_ which was the fate of half the victims.
Just think how many poor young girls were forced to remain spinsters because men did not want to marry someone with a less than perfect face._ although similarly disfigured men rarely faced a similar problem. I mean you see people everyday bearing their scars. May Allah grant them the fortitude to put up with their bad luck.
Quddusia, who must have had a truly scientific mind, noticed that people who caught the pox once never caught it again, and spent many a sleepless night with this thought in her head, turning it round and round, and upside down in an attempt to discover a remedy based on this fact.
‘Father,’ she said to the tabib, ‘do you think that in the reason why people who caught the pox once do not catch it again, lie a possible remedy?’
‘First,’ Abderrahman said, ‘do we know for sure that this is the case. Very often people know of one or two cases and they assume it’s true for everyone, and everybody begins shouting this as fact on the rooftops like it is the hadith.’
‘Then my first task is to find out.’
‘Excellent starting point,’ he said happily. Verily this child of mine was born for great things, he thought. May Allah protect her from harm.
She set out on the very next day, and went round the poor quarters of Baghdad for a whole week, questioning people. As she expected, she found that there were small pox victims everywhere. In a week she gathered information from eight hundred and fifty three of them. They had witnessed epidemics of small pox many times, and whilst friends and family died, the survivors were spared another infection, although many of their neighbours caught the disease. Having had it once, merciful Allah had spared them. The tabib was full of praise.
‘Marhaba! One hundred per cent!’ he exclaimed proudly, ‘Then I think we can safely assume that this is indeed the case. Write it in your notebook: Once a victim survives the small pox, he or she will not catch it again. Conclusion: There is such a thing as immunity. She wrote as her father had said, and added, Now we must do everything we can to find how to acquire this immunity.
Abderrahman wrote a letter to a Turkish doctor who had studied at Gondishapur with him, and who now professed medicine at the very same academy, to share his daughter’s findings. Dr Borhan Demirci congratulated him on having such a brilliant daughter, and confirmed that in Turkey doctors had tried to deal with the pox by a process now known as variolation. He explained the various ways in which this had been practised, but added that they had stopped doing this because although about fifty percent of those who received treatment proved to be immune during the great epidemics which wiped off huge swathes of the population, the remaining fifty percent still caught it with a great number of fatalities. It is true, Professor Demirci wrote, that this was massively beneficial, but people dwelled on the failures and attacked the project with virulence and it had to be discarded.
I am surprised that my audience is still with me. I haven’t seen any yawns, nor has there been any walk outs. Verily my countrymen and women are much more intelligent than people realise. They may like my frivolous tales, but Masha Allah, they can also appreciate facts.
My friends, when I see with what rapt attention you have been listening to the story of our illustrious Tabiba Quddusia, I do not wonder that our country produced the first great women doctors of the Arab world. But the poor woman did not have it easy.
Knowing that people don’t get the pox twice is one thing, but how to use this fact to stop the calamity spreading is another. Obviously if in her experiment a single patient were to die, she feared that people would react in the same manner as they did in Turkiya, and that would be the end of the line.
Professor Demirci had written about people being bruised and scabs and pus from the infected rubbed in, producing some benefit but an equal number of infections or death. Surely, she said to her father, a refinement of this technique is what we are after. The old man nodded gravely.
She decided to infect herself.
An epidemic of small pox was not long arriving. Quddusia collected some scabs and pus from patients visiting Abderrehmane who never hesitated to see patients although it was clearly a dangerous thing for himself. It was then that his daughter had her Eureka moment.
I think this audience is really sophisticated. Praised be Allah that our people are so keen to learn new things. It bodes well for our children and grandchildren. I realise today, for the first time that all this time I have been betraying the precepts of my mentor the revered Qyayyum bin Quayyum, who warned against details of a technical nature likely to be above the heads of those ignoramuses who have so much time to lose they can afford to spend a whole hour listening to our wild imaginings.
Oh, Eureka moment? Maybe one or two among you have forgotten_ which I gather by your murmurings when I referred to it. My apologies to the rest of you. Many centuries ago there was a Greek natural philosopher who kept asking himself questions, and happily for humanity he found many of the answers to his questions. One of the questions he asked was why if we roll off our bed we fall heavily on the floor, but if we fell in water we don’t, we even sometimes float. He discovered about buoyancy when he was in his bath tub one day. He reasoned that there must be a force pushing us up. He was so thrilled that he got out of his tub and in his excitement forgot to put his clothes on, and ran across the streets of Athens shouting to the perplexed crowds, Eureka! Eureka!, which those of you familiar with the Greek language know means, I have found it, I have found it. He was caught by the police and put to death for indecency.
Dramatic pause.
No, no, my friends, that was my little joke. He was greatly respected for his contribution to knowledge. Wherever you go in Athens, you will find statues of Archimedes. He was certainly a man in the mould of our great Abu Rayhan Al Biruni! The man who discovered before Galileo that the earth goes round the sun, who _
No, I must not get carried away, shooting off tangents.
Another time insha Allah I will tell you stories of that great man. Let me get back to the story of the tabiba.
Father, she shouted, you are the living proof that it is possible to become immune to the disease, you have been in contact with so many infected people, you developed immunity naturally, but obviously it’s not the same for the population. And she told him that she would rub small quantities of scabs from pox victims on a little cut in her arm, and Insha Allah she will not become a victim.
On the very next day, early in the morning, after the dawn prayer, she threw herself in the arms of her father.
‘Alab,’ she told him, ‘you have always been such a wonderful father, only Allah can reward you by allowing you a place in Djannat. I am going to take a great risk. Do not mourn too much for me if Allah thinks fit to recall me. Bury me next to dear mother.’
‘No, Quddusia jan. Allah will protect you. Do what you must do.’
She then went into her room, cut herself slightly, allowed the wound to dry, and then gently she rubbed some scab on it. For a whole day nothing happened, but she woke up in the night shivering with cold although it was hot and humid. Allah be praised, she said. The first part is working. She then began to feel pain in her back and in her tummy. Provided it doesn’t get worse, she hoped.
But it did.
Her temperature rose alarmingly, and she became delirious. She thought her long dead mother was in the room, and appealed to her to make her pain subside. She’s come to get me, Alab, she said clinging to her father, I don’t want to die. He gave her quinine and aspirin, applied compresses on her forehead, reciting verses from the Quran. He had attended to dying patients and became convinced that her beloved daughter’s time had come.
He gave her a draught and mercifully she fell asleep. Please Allah, let her have a good sleep, then let her wake up, but he feared that she might not make it.
My friends, when Allah deems it fit, he responds to the prayers of the faithful. She woke up in the morning, feeling a bit woozy, but the fever and the pains had gone.
Allah be praised.
When people heard of Quddusia’s cure they rejoiced!
A dramatic pause is called for here.
No my friends, they did not.
They called her names, said that as a woman she could not cure shit! If she claims she can then she is a sahira, a sorceress. She should be brought to the Imam and recant. Some were even calling for her to be stoned to death.
Some angry women seized her and dragged her to the house of the Grand Imam. They found him greatly distressed because his widowed sister who resided with the family had fallen victim to the pox. It was everybody’s fear that his household of two wives and eight children and himself were at a great risk.
The furies were all speaking together, and he could hardly understand a word of what they were saying.
‘It’s our doctor,’ she said recognising Quddusia. The women began shouting again, explaining that she was a witch, but the Imam did not understand a single word of what they were saying.
‘Shukran, shukran,’ he told the angry women, ‘so you have brought the doctor to save my family. Marhaba! Marhaba!’
The rabble were too stunned to speak, they had not expected this.
‘Well Quddusia, I should really call you Tabiba, but I’ve known you since you were a baby. Your father is such a good man. So what can you do for my poor sister, my children?’
The women had not been aware of the Imam’s immediate concern, did not know about his sister, and they gaped at him in consternation. Only one woman managed to speak.
‘Imam, she will commit sorcery and they will all die.’
‘If that’s what Allah wants, so be it, but I think Allah wants them saved, and his ways are mysterious to us mere mortals. He made you grab the poor tabiba and drag her to my humble abode for a reason.’ Then, turning to Quddusia, he said, ‘Tabiba, do what you can to save my family in the name of Allah.’
She first went to the poor dying sister and collected some scabs and pus from her, and carried out the variolation on all of them, including the Imam.
When the people of the district heard that the Imam himself had allowed the tabiba to variolate his family, everybody wanted their family treated.
The amazing thing was that out of the nine hundred people she applied the treatment to, only two died, whereas in the adjoining district, out of two thousand inhabitants, fifteen hundred people caught the calamity, half of whom died.
Thank you for listening.
